At what point during ?Pitch Black? did ?The Chronicles of Riddick? develop?
You know, it developed afterwards. Here we were making this little science fiction movie, we didn?t have a lot of money but we had a lot of ideas. We had this great idea of taking characters who were a little cut above the normal sci-fi characters, and then Vin Diesel created this unbelievable character in Riddick. Then we started thinking after we were finished, ?Well, gee.

What would it be like to see him react in a different situation?? ?Pitch Black? is just so confined, so few people, it?s just him and a bunch of survivors against creatures. So this time we decided to really change it up and take him into a whole different world, see what the universe was like that he lived in, what the conflicts were, what the different types of people are, and still have a couple of creatures in there, just for good measure. But the big idea was to keep the spirit ? the anti-hero spirit ? of his character and then just explore a whole new world.

David Twohy and Vin were really into [the films] and worked really closely together. David kind of puts the ?science? in the science fiction and Vin has a great sense of fantasy, and is like a big Dungeons and Dragons player ? I bet he still plays it. He?s a big gamer. He?s filled with ideas from that genre and it was fun to be able to lift those things up and kind of create a little bit of a different ride, and still stay, obviously, true to his character.

And get to see what happened to a few of the characters from the original movie, which was really fun too.

But it?s a much bigger risk this time, right? The budget?s $100 million more this time around.
Yeah. It?s a bigger picture. It also has more things in it. Not only do we have all these great actors in it ? Vin and Judi Dench ? but we have all these worlds that we?ve created and all these action stunts. It was great, actually, for people to have faith in our little movie. And building a movie around a character and creating a movie like this is fun, but it?s a brave thing to do. I?m just happy they gave us a chance because it?s been so much fun building it and everyone just got into crafting every detail as best we could so that it?s one of those movies that you like to look at and you go, ?Oh yeah, now I get it. Maybe I should go and check out the website and really get more details.?

These details were built not just by David and Vin, but by every actor and every technician that worked in the movie. Karl Urban wrote like a six-page treatise about Necromongers. We didn?t even know ? but he happened to know it and some of it was so great, it had to find its way into the movie. There was a lot of really good chemistry in the group. ?Let?s just get into this and the deeper we get into it, the more fun we can have and the more believable we can make it.? The actors really embraced it, and the technicians also did, too.

Will there be three installments?
We hope. That would be presumptuous to think? That?s our dream and we hope that the audience helps make that dream come true, but right now it?s just that we?ve got a lot of ideas.

Was it always in the plan to have the video game and the anime, and the other ancillary features?
Once we decided to do the movie, we decided to do all of those things together. And really be careful to have each one compliment the other, to fill in story holes between the original film and this film. To introduce some of the characters, but not to give away too much. It was really fun. We had a good team. Vin was really involved with the video game because he?s such a gamer. He?d come over and tell us what he was doing and David would give him an idea. Then we?d work on the anime, which is really great and really fills the gap between the two movies. We got Peter Chiang to do it. I think he?s an amazing artist and it really came out great. I have to say I thought, ?How is it going to work?? And then I saw the way he drew Riddick, and he just totally had it.

The guys who did the website, which was built a year ago, it has so much detail to explore. We have like an encyclopedia of facts about everything on there. That?s kind of the fun of it. You know, we?re all just a bunch of geeks so we love that stuff (laughing). It?s nice to have a crew that got into that. ?Let?s just become experts in something that doesn?t really exist and make it up.? There?s a real thrill to that. It?s hard to come up with it, but it?s so satisfying.

MORE INTERVIEWS FROM THE WORLD PREMIERE OF "THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK"
Vin Diesel, Thandie Newton and Director David Twohy / Colm Feore / Christina Cox / Alexa Davalos / Yorick van Wageningen & Linus Roache

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
"The Chronicles of Riddick" Movie Premiere Photos
"The Chronicles of Riddick" Production Photos, Credits, and Trailer