A live action follow-up to Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick is something fans have been waiting years for. Pitch Black helped launch star Vin Diesel's career and it spawned a big budget sequel which didn't meet critical or financial success the studio hoped for. Since then however, writer/director David Twohy and Vin Diesel have taken it upon themselves to find a way to make Riddick 3 happen, one that would return the franchise to its simpler, harsher roots and wrap-up the story of Riddick.

The last update we heard on the project, currently titled Chronicles of Riddick: Dead Man Stalking, came from Diesel himself who explained that principal shooting on Riddick 3 could begin as early as the summer, but with summer coming to an end and them finalizing the financial side of things, it has't happened just yet. Yesterday's news however, sheds more positive light on Riddick, as the latest inside information hints that casting is already underway.

Moviehole has the exclusive that Anne McCarthy, casting director for the last two Riddick films and Insidious, is testing actors for key supporting roles and they know what four of these roles are: "Boss Johns," "Santana," "the sexy female merc Dahl" and "The smug commander Krone."

From their description of the plot, the Riddick 3 script review story points we wrote about a year ago are spot on and the movie will definitely continue the story of The Chronicles of Riddick, acting as a direct sequel to it and Pitch Black, beginning with the title character now holding the title of the seventh Lord Marshal, leader of the Necromongers. Riddick 3 will rightfully earn itself an R-Rating and will follow Diesel's personal favorite film character stuck on another barren planet, attempting to survive against three-legged bisons (“trisons”), mud demons and jetcycle-riding bounty hunters.

Moviehole offers more details on the story, explaining that it begins with Riddick surrounded by monsters on the planet and uses flashbacks to show the audience how he ended up there. As we heard last year, Vaako (Karl Urban) plays a small part in the film and helps Riddick - who's hated by the Necromongers - return to his home planet of Furya. Things of course, do not go according to plan, and Diesel ends up abandoned on this other planet with bounty hunters picking up on his distress call. It is there, among the teams of bounty hunters looking for Riddick, that there contains a key story link back to the original Pitch Black, allowing the trilogy to go full circle much like with what we're seeing in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises.

If you wish to enter spoiler territory and learn more about the character of Boss Johns and Riddick's past, head over to Moviehole (hint: remember the character of William J. Johns (Cole Hauser) from the original Pitch Black?).

Stay tuned for more on Chronicles of Riddick: Dead Man Stalking as we should soon hear more official news on the film and its schedule.

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Source: Moviehole