So after thirteen years, a sequel that tanked and lots of rumors Vin Diesel is bringing back the xXx franchise and his character Xander Cage (Ice Cube played the lead in the sequel). That’s right, more super sweet extreme stunt type action from the Diesel camp. The first film was popular with fans back in 2002 but the sequel was both a critical and financial flop. Either way it looks like they will begin shooting early next year in the Philippines. As of now they have given the movie a name, and the painfully obvious title of the third installment will be xXx: The Return of Xander Cage.
What makes this interesting isn’t just that Vin Diesel is revisiting yet another franchise, but that ten days prior to the release of xXx: state of the Union, a Directors Cut DVD of the original was released, which included a short film entitled The Final Chapter: The Death of Xander Cage, in which (you guessed it) Xander Cage dies. Either they will try to explain how he survived being blown up to pieces, or they will simply consider it non-canon (neither the original director Rob Cohen or Diesel were involved in the sequel or the short film. Cage was played by Vin’s stunt double in the short).
It seems to make sense that they would revive this after the amount of success the Fast and Furious franchise has had in it’s re-birth (not that it went away but they brought back the big guns and it destroyed at the box office). Hard to say just how many die-hard Diesel fans there are for this but I mean its not like Hollywood has time for new ideas, so why not?!?!
