In one week we will see Vin Diesel return as Xander Cage in the aptly titled, XXX: THE RETURN OF XANDER CAGE. The first XXX flick solidified him a box office superstar back in 2002, and this time he’s with a very diverse cast that includes Donnie Yen, Ruby Rose and a ton of other people who got their own character poster. Paramount hopes to capitalize on the wave on nostalgia to bring in the bucks, and they’re so confident people will show out they aren’t wasting time getting things ready for the future, if you know what I mean. Hint hint.
While doing an interview for Variety, Diesel was asked about any future movies in the series, to which he answered:
Well, it’s funny, I was in the middle of an interview and Brad Grey — who runs Paramount — calls me and says, ‘Will everybody come back to work in May?’ I’m like – everyone’s in interviews right now!
With only one week to go chances are Paramount has already gotten an idea of how much money the movie will make, and if they're making a sequel they will want to get everyone on board to capitalize on the franchise’s resurgence. I have no clue how the movie will do stateside, but considering the incredibly diverse cast XXX has the potential to rake in huge amounts of cash from overseas markets. Diesel spoke about wanting to have a cast that could break into all different kinds foreign territories saying:
I wanted to go out of the confines of Hollywood — go into foreign film markets — and pulled out their celebrated, respected heroes.
Diesel went on to say later at the movie’s London premiere that, “although we come from all over the world, when you see us together, you see harmony.”
The FAST AND FURIOUS franchise has benefited from pulling talent from other countries, so why can’t XXX? With this possibly of a massive global haul alone I’d say another XXX movie is without a doubt in the cards. If Paramount is as itchy about getting it started as it seems we could even have a sequel in a relatively short amount of time. Hell, maybe they could even do a FAST and XXX crossover, and Diesel can just run back and forth in between shots, and wear a fake mustache so you can tell his characters apart. FAST AND FURIOUS 9: THE RETURN OF VIN DIESEL’S HAIR!
Xander Cage returns on January 20.