“Riddick” stole the number one spot at the box-office in North America during its first weekend with $18.7 million. Financially the film has paved the way for future installments to be developed, however fans are not as impressed with the sequel as initially anticipated. “Riddick” is rated 62% (at the time of this article update) by the general moviegoers, the lowest score in the franchise ever based on 61984 reviewers (courtesy of Rottentomatoes.com).

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“Riddick” promised to be darker than its predecessors

Since the release of the red-band trailer at the San Diego Comic-Con, fans couldn’t hardly wait to see the final product, directed by returning helmer David Twohy. The first trailer did not deliver on the direction the film promised to take, however the red-band trailer had many sci-fi fans at the edge of their seats. “Riddick” promised to be darker than its predecessors and will be more in line with the very popular “Pitch Black” made in 2000. ”

“Riddick” serves as a direct sequel to “The Chronicles of Riddick”, with the anti-hero abandoning the Necromonger throne on a mission to find his homeworld, Furya. The Necromongers agree to escort him on his journey to find Furya where eventually they end up on an unknown planet with highly evolved animal life with extraordinary hunting skills. Left for dead and desperate to find and activate an emergency beacon, Riddick faces his toughest fight for survival yet.

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The Necromonger storyline is purposefully introduced to lay the foundations for the addition sequels

“Riddick” also serves as a reboot of the franchise to pave the way for at least two more sequels that delve more into the “Chronicles of Riddick” mythos. In an interview with SFX, both David Twohy and Vin Diesel discussed plans for the movies beyond the new one.

The Necromonger storyline is purposefully introduced to lay the foundations for the addition sequels, Twohy says:

“At its core [Riddick] is a survival story about one man, and his only way to get off this planet is to call in the mercenaries for a ride,”
“That said, we don’t turn our backs on the mythology that we planted in the last movie, and we are actually bringing Karl [Urban] back for a few days of filming to advance it and lay the groundwork for movie four. We’re concerned with paying off the loyal fans and think that if somebody doesn’t understand something the solution is to look at the other two movies and get up to speed. It does play in a gratifying way as a standalone movie, but there are threads that we continue to sew that we started in previous movies and will continue in future movies.”

Diesel chimed in about the next films:

“You’ve got to go to the Underverse,”
“It’s expected, it’s something I firmly believe. You’ll have to go through the Underverse to get to Furya. So, those are the two further stories that are mapped out. The Underverse is a much more costly venture. We went this direction, trying to do an R-rated movie, which is cool and even more interesting because it’s so unexpected. But yes, you will be at the Underverse and you will be at Furya sooner or later.”