Vin Diesel completed filming for the third instalment of the 'Riddick' franchise earlier this year, which he produced and starred in. Diesel's dedication to 'Riddick' is far from the norm, as the 46 year old owns the rights to the intergalactic predator, according to the Hollywood Reporter. 

Vin Diesel
Vin Diesel stars as the highly dangerous ex-con, Riddick

The muscle bound actor and Riddick's director, David Twohy, have worked vigorously for the survival of the 'Riddick' franchise and the crucial play was executed in 2006. Diesel was asked to make a cameo appearance in Universal's 'The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift' in an attempt to re-ignite the racing franchise, he only agreed to the cameo with a stipulation, he could trade his acting fee for the rights to the 'Riddick' character for his own production company, One Race. 

Vin's big break derived from the first 'Riddick' film back in 2000, under a different title name, 'Pitch Black', and even with its low budget production it is considered to have a cult following. The second instalment was released in 2004, titled 'The Chronicles of Riddick', it had a much bigger budget of $100,000 but received unanimously negative reviews and performed poorly at box office. 

Universal didn't revisit the 'Riddick' franchise and it fell into obscurity, but Diesel wasn't going to see it disappear forever, in an interview with Collider Diesel discussed his desire to make another instalment, "The reality is that I always envisioned the Riddick franchise as a continuing mythology, so I always imagined that there would be many other films to follow". And in an emotional press conference at the premiere of 'Riddick' (28th August 2013) in Los Angeles, he stated "It's the story of my life", referring to Riddick's depiction as an underdog.

The reason Diesel feels so attached to the character could be that it was his emergence into the limelight but it could also be that if the first film failed he would have lost his house, as we reported earlier this week. Thankfully 'Pitch Black' achieved enough success for Diesel to become the worldwide star he is today.

'Riddick' set to hit theatres on September 6th 2013.

Watch the 'Riddick' tralier here