We got to interview director Rob Cohen today about Alex Cross, the reboot of the James Patterson detective novel series. We also got to asking about the status of xXx 3, which would bring back Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) after he was eliminated for the Ice Cube sequel xXx: State of the Union. It turns out Cohen is so far along on plans for the third film, to be shot in 3D, he’s already shot test footage, and you can see it.
“We did all new extreme sports things,” Cohen said. “I don’t know if you saw my Verizon wingsuit commercial, I had been preparing the climax of xXx 3D to be a wingsuit sequence, an actual physical fight in the air at terminal velocity. So that commercial was a warmup.”
So the final battle of xXx 3D could look something like this:
Vin Diesel with wings? We’re there. Well, we may be there before Diesel himself is. It took years for Cohen and Diesel to reconcile after an acrimonious parting, and for Diesel to return to the franchises he launched.
“I’m just waiting for Vin to get his head out of doing back to back Fasts to sit down and really get him to focus on doing xXx 3D,” Cohen said. “That’s what I called it because we’re going to shoot it in 3D. I wanted to do an action film in 3D.”
Rest assured, a Rob Cohen 3D movie would have the action flying out of the screen. He wouldn’t do James Cameron style 3D. “No, I would not do the convergence point safe,” Cohen said. “I would take more chances. I shot some Coca-Cola commercials in 3D and had a lot of fun with the Y axis. It was good.”
If you’re as die hard a xXx fan as I am, you’ll remember that Xander Cage was killed in action in an offhanded remark in State of the Union. Furthermore, a short film on the xXx Director’s Cut DVD shows Xander Cage (from behind, it was a Diesel double obviously) enter a building that explodes, and his scalp with the xXx tattoo lands on the pavement. It’s not hard to imagine Cage sent a double into the building to fake his own death.
“Well, I was so mad at Vin at that time but yes, I always felt like that was like an oddity and that we would want to bring him back and give him a backstory.”
Cohen also has Xander Cage’s new villains all thought out. “He’s up against a brother and sister, twins who are doing terrible things.”
We’ll be back with more on xXx 3D after the things we do for our country.
