In 2000, David Twohy's Pitch Black had audiences and critics alike doing double-takes with a "where-did-that-come-from?" buzz. The modestly budgeted science fiction thriller was a compelling reminder that genre films could have brains to match the brawn…in this specific case, the brawn of Riddick, the film's fascinating anti-hero, portrayed by Vin Diesel, at that time a new discovery.

"Pitch Black was meant to be a commercial film not unfamiliar in its setting or context," notes Twohy, "but unexpected in its depth of character.  I wanted to play with reversal of expectation, so that the 'bad guy' redeems himself.  I wanted to play out a good morality play at the heart of a commercial science fiction horror film."

an anti-hero of our time
With Pitch Black, Twohy and Diesel created an anti-hero for our time in Riddick, whom the actor calls "a seemingly nefarious character who ends up being your only hope.  Riddick lives within the realm of neutrality.  These least likely of heroes sometimes take on a cult status in the science fiction community." 

Riddick is the antithesis of the staunchly upright movie hero.  According to Diesel, "Riddick, who has been counted out, given up on, overlooked and misrepresented, winds up being the one you are praying succeeds in saving you and everyone else in the universe."

Executive producer George Zakk, Vin Diesel's associate in their company, One Race Films, recalls the groundswell of grass roots approval that developed for the character of Riddick in the wake of the release of Pitch Black.  "When we hit the road promoting the film, there were always huge crowds waiting.  Riddick was an anti-hero that people just related to.  They would say, 'This guy's cool.  He doesn't play by the rules.  He doesn't give a damn about anybody or anything.'  But by the end of the film, he's no longer a 'bad guy.'  There's an ambiguity to Riddick that audiences respond to and find intriguing.  Riddick is the most unlikely of heroes.  He's an interesting character, because he knows that there's something special about himself, but he's reticent to accept the responsibility that may come with that."

How do you make an anti-hero?  "You let him evolve into it," responds Twohy.  "It didn't hurt that for the first half-hour of Pitch Black, Riddick doesn't speak, which only heightened his charisma.  And when he does speak, he is selective with his words.  In Pitch Black, Riddick evolved from a killer to an anti-hero, and he retains that anti-hero status at the beginning of the new movie.  The Chronicles of Riddick is more about understanding who he really is, and that he is no small player in the universe.  His loner status is over."

Diesel was also excited to explore previously unexplored aspects of the character.  "In Chronicles, you can invest in Riddick's development, become a part of that.  The film takes you, step-by-step, through the process of watching him understand the significance and value of his life.  It's really his evolution, watching an anti-hero re-join the human race."

changing genres from horror to science fiction
"We actually started to think about a second Riddick movie when we were in post-production on Pitch Black," Twohy recalls, "and I knew the trap that other sequels had fallen into, replaying the same thing over and over again.  I said that the key to a sequel is not to do the expected.  Don't go back to the same planet, don't meet the same creatures and don't even let it be a creature movie.  We actually changed genres from horror to science fiction action-adventure.  We wanted a metamorphosis rather than a re-run."

Pitch Black's reception and success as a home-video title infused both its creator and star with the hope that they could return to the world of Riddick…but this time, on a larger scale, building a new, mythological, action-adventure world around him, populated by equally fascinating characters.  The Chronicles of Riddick would be a story rich in complex characters set in a compelling and seductive, imaginary world, peopled with a planetary array of warring races and competing agendas.  Twohy and Diesel's mandate was to endow Riddick with new challenges, an ensemble setting, huge action set pieces and greater adventures.

From their experiences working together on Pitch Black, Diesel and Twohy knew that together, they created a winning combination of action, fantasy know-how and science fiction smarts.  Luckily, Twohy had just finished directing and writing the supernatural thriller Below, and was available to return to the Riddick playing board.  And like Diesel, he was also looking "to paint on a bigger canvas" with his screenplay for the continuation of Riddick's adventures, The Chronicles of Riddick. 

"David's script totally blew everyone away," recalls producer Scott Kroopf.  "We all knew we had something pretty special.  I think people were kind of expecting him to do just a bigger version of Pitch Black, but were excited that David went so far beyond that, dreaming up worlds and universes.  The Chronicles of Riddick does relate the further adventures of Riddick, but it's also an exploration of a whole world with extraordinary elements and a stand-alone story. 

"Pitch Black fans will certainly see things paid off in the new movie," continues Kroopf, "but it's not required that you've seen the first film, because the characters have their own introductions."

teamwork: casting the ensemble
Just as Pitch Black was an ensemble piece in which the character of Riddick functioned as the pivot, Twohy and Diesel sought to continue this tradition by recruiting an international cast of true renown, many of them veterans of classical theatre…and one, an authentic treasure of every medium, delighting herself with an immersion into a zone previously unexplored in her amazing career.

Most importantly for Diesel was to convince Dame Judi Dench to play Aereon. Twohy comments, "The character of Aereon is mischievous, and we needed somebody to come to it and imbue her with a certain gravitas.  The casting of Judi Dench helped to keep a very light-footed character very grounded."

To attract Dench to the role, Diesel flew to London to watch her perform onstage, and filled her dressing room with flowers.  She agreed to read the The Chronicles of Riddick script and was "terribly flattered that somebody of Vin's age wanted me to be in his picture."  She had, of course, already scored some 'street credibility' as James Bond's boss, M, in the most recent incarnations of that venerable series, but Dench freely admits, "I've never done a film like this and never one of this magnificent scale."

Dame Judi proved, as expected, the lure to catch other big fish.  Colm Feore, himself no stranger to classical roles, calls her "a woman who can speak volumes with the merest whisper, an actor of great experience and intelligence, of great talent and instinct.  She classes the whole project up quite considerably, so I figured that if she said yes, there must be something to this."

David Twohy describes Colm Feore as "a truly talented and gifted man, a throwback to stage actors of old whose goal was to service the text rather than aggrandize their career.  Colm wants to help you tell your story as best he can.  Rather than venture down a lot of side streets that really don't move things forward, Colm sees the goal and wants to help you get there."

Feore himself saw the possibilities in Chronicles as soon as it came his way.  "I didn't see it as just a popcorn movie," he says.  "One of the things I admired about David's script was that he was brave enough to layer in things on the page which seemed quite difficult.  There are parallels between the worlds depicted in the film and our own history.  Lord Marshal thinks he's bringing civilization to the vast darkness, with the attitude of 'if you don't join us, we will utterly destroy you.'  And in conquering these worlds after our fashion, we have to be able to residually impose upon them the order and infrastructure that will keep it going…while being able to squash rebellion when it arises."

Like most actors who play villains, Feore had to find a point of empathy with Lord Marshal, leader of the race whose overriding goal is to cleanse the universe of all human life.  "I don't see him as an evil man," he says matter-of-factly.  "He's a warrior priest.  He's called 'Lord Marshal,' but I see him very much like Julius Caesar--a Roman emperor, conquering barbarian lands and bringing under his empire whatever new worlds they come into contact with.  In that vein, he looks at Riddick as a man with enormous potential."

Karl Urban, who portrayed Rohan warrior Eomer in the second and third entries of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, campaigned to convince David Twohy he need not look elsewhere for his Vaako.  "I was a fan of Pitch Black," says Urban, "and when I heard that David Twohy was preparing The Chronicles of Riddick I knew I wanted to be in that film."  Urban confesses that he "begged, borrowed and stole" to get his hands on the guarded Riddick script, and then finagled an audition with Twohy, who was swayed by Urban's zealous pursuit of the role. 

Urban found an unusual and unexpectedly compelling side to Twohy's script and offers, "One of the things that appealed to me most about Chronicles is that there are no good guys--it's just different shades of bad.  But even the bad guys, you're going to like."

Another performer in whom Twohy saw great potential was 21-year-old Alexa Davalos, who makes her feature film debut in The Chronicles of Riddick as Kyra.  "The character as written was very tough," says the director, "and there was concern that she would be completely unsympathetic.  Yet, Alexa has such a natural sympathy that she started to lean almost against type.  She would give a real heart to the role.  A lot of the other actresses I read had plenty of toughness to them, but didn't show enough of the other side."
"Alexa came in and read," says Vin Diesel, "and she was so good.  The second I met with her there was no doubt in my mind that she would be someone who could embrace the strength of Kyra, who's a fighting machine and almost as deadly as Riddick.  At the same time, Alexa would remind us of Kyra's innocence, and I knew she would knock that out of the park as well."

She credited Vin Diesel with helping her prepare for Kyra--which is an extension of the role of Jack from Pitch Black--by relating the experiences that Riddick and Jack shared in the earlier film.  "Vin's been wonderful in creating that transition between Jack and Kyra, and helping me not only with the character, but with the physicality as well," says Davalos.

Also helping to create another bridge between Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick is Keith David, who reprises his role as Imam.  David feels very at home in the character, because "here is a man who doesn't preach doctrine--he lives it--which is, I think, the best way to breathe your religion, whatever it may be. 

inventing universes: visualizing The Chronicles of Riddick
With a significantly larger budget to work with--and a huge canvas in which to free the imaginations of all involved--Twohy began to put together a dream team of conceptual designers such as Matt Codd, Daren Dochterman, James Oxford and Brian Murray to begin sketching the world of The Chronicles of Riddick.  Soon thereafter, Twohy secured the considerable talents of production designer Holger Gross, whose previous foray into the world of motion picture science fiction was Roland Emmerich's well-regarded Stargate.  Gross, supervising art director Kevin Ishioka and their huge team had one mandate from Twohy:  "If we've seen it before, throw it away."

The artists focused their efforts on defining three key looks for the film: the environments of the Necromongers, which primarily included their command mothership, the Basilica, and the worlds vanquished by their campaign; the planet Crematoria--hellish in its temperature extremes of 700° by day and -300° at night--and its subterranean prison, the Slam; and Planet Helion, home to an advanced, halcyon society that prospers by capturing, storing, trading and distributing light to far-flung worlds.  Gross was determined to create physical elements for the film that were not specifically wedded to the future, but could also invoke the past. 

Awash in warm tones, the cities of Helion vary in their architectural style to reflect the planet's multicultural face, and mix historical and modern elements to allude to the planet's immigrant quality and progressive outlook.  The inhabitants of Helion vary in their looks and garments, but all within a palette of earthy spice colors accented with turquoises and azure blues.  And, as a reflection of Helion's main export and the wealth it brings, makeup artist Victoria Down "warmed everyone up, gave them a glow.  These are peaceful, happy, wealthy people."

If Helion is heaven, then the Slam is pure hell.  As this is a for-profit prison, situated beneath the surface of an inhospitable planet and run by mobsters, the design team quickly realized that the key to creating the Slam lay in recognizing the prison not as a building imposed upon the landscape, but as a natural space that had been modified--as cheaply as possible--for use as a prison.  The result is a 200 foot lava tube crudely partitioned into cells, here and there destroyed by continuous volcanic activity, filled with exposed wiring and massive air vents, covered with a film of volcanic dust and clearly lacking creature comforts, including adequate plumbing.

In stark contrast both to the cheerful world of Helion and the primitiveness of the Slam, the Necromongers are the epitome of evil sophistication…and also the toughest challenge for Holger Gross and his conceptual artists.  Deciding upon a look for the Necros--that integrated elements of their military prowess, ideology and lifestyle into a scheme that was visually exciting without succumbing to stereotypes--was not an easy task.  After much brainstorming amongst the group, Gross found his answer in the early Baroque architecture of 17^th century Central Europe.

Huge, detailed, elegant yet heavy, punctuated with dark metal finishes, Gross calls the Necro world "twisted Baroque, if you will…a cross between fascism and theocracy, very religious and aesthetic in terms of architectural detail, yet at the same time cold and evil, but very powerful.  Finally, we developed a style we called 'Necro-Baroque.'" 

Based on elliptic shapes, the adaptation of the Baroque style employed by Gross also created the illusion of constant movement.  Everything is curved and non-directional, so that buildings appear to alter as the camera moves.  This, of course, created serious construction challenges.  "It would not be easy to build," admits Gross.  "There would be many struggles finding the shape, especially for technical pieces like the spacecraft and weaponry.  The Necros are living in spaceships, they're very technologically advanced, so one has to tweak and shift without losing the Necro-Baroque feeling."

The art department under Gross and Ishioka consisted of seven illustrators, 10 set designers, two art directors and, for the prop department, two more conceptual artists.  Models were made of all of the sets, as well as the crafts.  "David Twohy was involved with every aspect of design," relates Ishioka.  "He approved everything, and that ensured an overriding, homogenous vision."


Building the sets, the costumes
The stunt work
End of an epic - taking stock
Vin Diesel: actor - producer
David Twohy: writer -director
Jim Wheat and Ken Wheat: creators of the characters
The chronicles of Riddick:  escape from butcher bay - the video game
The Chronicles of Riddick:  Dark Fury - DVD adventure