Credit: Far Out / Alamy
Fri 29 May 2026 13:30, UK
At this stage of his career, you’ve got to wonder where Vin Diesel would have ended up today were it not for his beloved franchises, which have been the gifts that keep on giving for the last 25 years.
After all, since 2008, the chrome-domed action hero has appeared in 19 features, and how many of them weren’t part of an existing film series? Three. Of those three outliers, how many of them haven’t had sequels teased at one point or another by the actor and producer? Just the one, incredibly.
Ang Lee’s dismal Billy Lynn’s Halftime Walk is the only movie Diesel has made in the last two decades that wasn’t designed with follow-ups in mind, and even though The Last Witch Hunter hasn’t gotten one yet, recent moves have suggested that Michael Caine could be coaxed out of retirement to do it. Bloodshot, on the other hand, you forgot existed, so it’d be safe to assume that’ll stay a one-and-done thing.
And to think, he wasn’t the first choice to play Dominic Toretto in The Fast and the Furious, either. The part was offered to Timothy Olyphant, who turned it down, opening the door for Diesel to spend a quarter of a century droning on about family, defying the laws of physics, and refusing to wear anything with sleeves.
That was a massive what-if in itself, but an even bigger one unfolded immediately beforehand. Toretto might be the defining character of his career, but Diesel has always given off the impression that Richard B Riddick is his favourite, and his first major leading role in a movie, David Twohy’s 2000 cult favourite Pitch Black, set him on the path towards the A-list.
An effective B-tier sci-fi thriller, Diesel’s gravel-throated monotone and physicality made him a perfect fit for the intergalactic mercenary, and as he’s wont to do, he reprised the gig in two sequels, with another on the way, as well as a pair of video games and an animated short. However, he only got the part because Twohy refused to bow to the studio’s demands, which were preposterous in hindsight.
“There was a strange moment, a pivotal moment, in the casting process,” the filmmaker recalled. “I was down in Australia, I was scouting locations, I was building sets, when a call came from Los Angeles that said, ‘OK, we gave the script to… ‘Big Action Star of the Day’. And he wants to do it.’”
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
That knocked the director for a loop, especially when their reputation preceded them. “Unfortunately, this ‘Big Action Star of the Day’ was known to be a major dick as well,” Twohy added. “And so, in a very pivotal moment, I said no. I’m not going to do that. I’m just not going to cast that guy in the movie.” Hmm, an action star who was still semi-notable at the turn of the millennium, who was also known to be a wanker of cosmic proportions, who could that possibly be?
If your mind instantly wandered to a certain portly aikido master, you’d be right on the money. “You may have the choice of making the movie with Steven Seagal or not making the movie at all,” he was told. Steven Seagal? Playing Riddick? In Pitch Black? Fucking hell, what a shitshow that would have been. Fortunately, Twohy put his foot down, refused to hire the vaunted arsehole, and handed Diesel his big-screen breakout role instead.
ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE 