Why xXxs Anthology Approach Failed (It Needed Vin Diesel)

Why xXx’s Anthology Approach Failed (It Needed Vin Diesel)

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After Vin Diesel declined to return for xXx 2, producers wrongly figured they could just insert a new hero into the xXx mix and fans wouldn’t care.

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Why xXxs Anthology Approach Failed (It Needed Vin Diesel)

After Vin Diesel declined to return for xXx 2, producers wrongly figured they could just insert a new hero into the xXx mix and fans wouldn’t care. The baritone-voiced Diesel sometimes has his acting style ridiculed by detractors, but clearly, he’s doing something right. Diesel first really got noticed playing deadly anti-hero Richard Riddick in 2000’s Pitch Black, and while that franchise ended up a mixed bag, Diesel would shortly after get in on the ground floor of one of Hollywood’s most successful action series: The Fast and the Furious.

Off the huge return on investment earned by the first Fast and the Furious in 2001, 2002 saw Diesel debut his next big character in xXx’s Xander Cage. A stuntman, extreme sports athlete, and all-around badass, Cage finds himself recruited to become an unlikely secret agent by the NSA, in the form of Samuel L. Jackson’s Augustus Gibbons.

xXx seemed clearly designed to start a franchise, and it was, but Diesel ended up disliking the script for the sequel xXx: State of the Union, so he dropped out of the project. Not wanting to give up on what they thought was a hot new brand name at the moment, Sony pressed forward and hired Ice Cube to play a new lead character. To put things mildly, that was a miscalculation.

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Why xXx Can’t Succeed Without Vin Diesel

When deciding to make xXx: State of the Union without Vin Diesel, Sony truly fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The studio vastly underestimated how much of xXx’s success was due to Diesel’s star power, and vastly overestimated the appeal that the xXx name and universe held for audiences. This isn’t to suggest Ice Cube, isn’t a celebrity, as he’s gone on to star in several highly successful movies in his own right, but Diesel was – and is – one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood. There are definitely people who go to see movies because they’re Vin Diesel movies, and that includes xXx. Without Diesel’s Xander Cage in the lead, audiences took a hard pass on State of the Union, which bombed so badly it didn’t even make its budget back in theaters.

Further evidence to support the lack of Diesel as being the primary reason xXx 2 failed can be seen in 2017’s xXx: Return of Xander Cage, which saw Diesel come back into the fold. Return of Xander Cage made even bigger profits than the original xXx, and that’s despite a 15-year gap since Diesel last played Cage. In fact, it proved such a hit that Diesel is set to return for an xXx 4, which is currently in the works. For better or worse, Sony hopefully now realizes that the xXx franchise runs only on Diesel power.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/xxx-movie-anthology-sequels-failed-vin-diesel/

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