Vin Diesel Is Taking Over Another Multi-Billion Dollar Franchise, No One Saw It Coming

Vin Diesel is jumping from one blockbuster franchise to another.

By Drew Dietsch | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

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Vin Diesel is already a bonafide megastar thanks to his time as Dominic Toretto in the Fast & Furious franchise. The series is a multi-billion dollar juggernaut that spans 10 films and still has more movies coming. As it currently stands, it is the ninth highest-grossing movie franchise worldwide in the history of cinema. That alone is the kind of “feather in your cap” that many stars would wear proudly and live out the rest of their days collecting residuals from. And there are plenty of actors who would never dream of hopping over from one gargantuan blockbuster series to another one.

But, plenty of actors are not Vin Diesel. It turns out that the superstar is going to be popping up in one of James Cameron’s sequels to Avatar, the record-shattering sci-fi epic that has lots more in store thanks to multiple planned follow-up films. How do we know the once and future Richard B. Riddick will be taking a trip to Pandora? In a recent interview with Josh Horowitz for MTV News, Diesel was asked about recent rumors that he was hanging out with James Cameron and if he was going to pop up in one of the new Avatar films. You can see the Iron Giant himself barely contain his glee in the clip below:

“I have spent time with [James Cameron], but I have not filmed yet,” Vin Diesel replied. He later added, “I think it’s safe to say that we will be working together.” If that isn’t a confirmation, what is? It looks like we can look forward to the man who brought Bloodshot to life suiting up for some interplanetary rainforest shenanigans. Obviously, just how prominent Diesel will be in the eventual project and what his character will be is a total mystery, but you know this has got us speculating about every possibility under the sun.

The first place we have to go is: will Vin Diesel be one of the Na’vi? The tough-guy actor is actually an enormous dork with a known love of roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons. The idea that he would want to take on the role of a fantasy creature like one of the Na’vi would certainly play to his particular love of genre storytelling. Plus, you just know people would be chatting nonstop if the Fast & Furious guy showed up on the big screen as a blue cat-person alien. It’d almost be disappointing to see him as anything else.

But, maybe that is the plan with Vin Diesel in Avatar 2 or Avatar 3 or any of the other sequels and spinoffs we are being told will happen. It would be interesting to see Diesel play one of the military antagonists like Stephen Lang did in the first film. Or perhaps one of these new installments will introduce yet another alien species that has a humanoid structure. And hey, who knows if Vin Diesel would be on board for playing a hero or an antagonist? At this point, we can imagine anything we want!

So, if you were thinking that Vin Diesel was going to hang up his boots after the Fast & Furious movies had run their course, you’ve got another thing coming. You can expect to see him in the world of Avatar at some point in the not-too-distant future.