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It’s been over a decade since our favorite interstellar convict with the shiny peepers — Richard B. Riddick (Vin Diesel) — showed up onscreen to kick the butts of monsters and mercenaries alike in 2013’s Riddick. Where has he gone and where is he going?

While not as prolific as another Diesel-fronted franchise, the Fast & Furious series, David Twohy’s epic sci-fi saga centered around a see-in-the-dark antihero (and one-time galactic messiah) remains a seriously underrated gem amongst the genre catalogue owned by Universal Pictures. Despite numerous development updates over the last 11 years, production has yet to begin on the long-awaited fourth installment, which will be titled Riddick: Furya (named after the titular character’s planet of origin).

3For More on the Riddick Franchise:
Making Sense of Vin Diesel’s Sci-Fi Epic: The Riddick Timeline Explained
How Vin Diesel Righted the Science Fiction Ship with Riddick
The Riddick films show Vin Diesel’s rise to peak Diesel-ness

With the OG trilogy — Pitch Black (2000), The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), and Riddick (2013)  —now streaming on Peacock, let’s take a look everything we know about Riddick’s next galactic outing.

Everything We Know About Riddick 4 (So Far)

Posting on his official Facebook page in early 2014 (via Slash Film), Diesel revealed that Universal wanted to make a fourth chapter in the wake of Riddick‘s strong DVD sales. Appearing together in a live video the following year, Twohy and Diesel teased the next film as an R-rated “origin story” for Riddick. “Do you want to know where it all started? Where it all began?” hinted Diesel.

At the time of the recording, the duo were eyeing an early 2017 start date for principal photography, owing to the fact that Diesel had just welcomed a new daughter. “Whenever I’m a fresh dad, I can’t go to that dark place,” he explained. “But if you give me a little time, if you let me make sure that all my little angels are walking, if I give you 12 months to just get us all lined up, we could be looking at starting Riddick [4 in] early 2017.”

Of course, that never happened. The next update wouldn’t arrive until four years later when Diesel showed off the front page of Twohy’s screenplay for Riddick: Furya. Dated July 18, 2019, this draft of the script featured the following epigraph: “Everyone wants to be a beast…until it’s time to do what real beasts do.”

Filming may have gotten underway sooner, had it not been for the devastating industry shutdown caused by the COVID-19 health crisis. Diesel remained mum on the future of Riddick until a June 2021 interview with GamesRadar. “[Director] David Twohy, he wrote a great script,” the actor said while promoting F9. “It’s just a matter of timing when we get that opportunity to shoot that. But I believe we’re shooting that in Australia. And it would be the fourth chapter in that series, which would be awesome.”

Riddick: Furya Finally Moving Forward 

Diesel reignited fan excitement the following year by sharing some Furya storyboards on his Instagram account. At long last, the project was confirmed to be moving forward last year in a report by Deadline, which provided an official synopsis for the sequel:

“Riddick finally returns to his home world, a place he barely remembers and one he fears might be left in ruins by the Necromongers. But there he finds other Furyans fighting for their existence against a new enemy. And some of these Furyans are more like Riddick than he could have ever imagined.”

Diesel and his sister, Samantha Vincent, will produce the sci-fi blockbuster under their One Race banner. Thorsten Schumacher, Lars Sylvest, and Joe Neurauter are also producing. The shoot is expected to kick off in late August, giving Diesel plenty of time to get back in peak shape for the role. And just this past weekend, the actor celebrated “Furyan Friday” with an image of what looks to be a bright-eyed (literally) young Riddick wearing battle armor.

“Our legion fans have demanded it for years, and now we’re finally ready to honor their call to action with Riddick: Furya,” Twhoy said in a statement to Deadline. “My collaboration with Vin and One Race has spanned 20 fruitful years, as together we’ve created three movies, two video games, an anime production, and motion comics for the internet. This new big-screen event will see a return to Riddick’s homeworld, where we finally get to explore Riddick’s genesis.”

Pitch Black (2000), The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), and Riddick (2013) are now streaming on Peacock.