No concrete details are yet forthcoming but
Diesel told Collider recently that his next three projects included a new Kojak movie and, back in 2013,
Diesel had suggested he would like to see
Brokeback Mountain and
Life of Pi director Ang Lee onboard to direct the film.
First, he’ll be playing a 700-year old New Yorker, working alongside Michael Caine (
Harry Brown) on Breck Eisner’s
The Last Witch Hunter. “Working opposite Michael Caine will be a blast [as] I’ve always wanted to work with [him],” the
Fast & Furious star
revealed.
“Then I will do Kojak for Universal, which is gonna be really exciting,”
Diesel confirmed.
It has long been mooted that Diesel was attached to a feature-film adaptation of
Kojak, Universal Television’s seventies television crime-drama series, which starred the late Telly Savalas as New York City Police Department’s iconic “Who loves ya, baby”, bald-headed, sweet-lollipop-sucking Lieutenant Theo Kojak.
This won’t be the first time that there’s been another take on Kojak, however. In 2005, Ving Rhames took over the role in NBCUniversal’s
short-lived series, brought forward to the 21st century.
KojakxXxed
Following
Kojak,
Diesel confirmed, he’ll be returning to the
xXx fold, for a third instalment of that movie franchise.
Diesel starred in Rob Cohen’s original 2002 movie, as the extreme-sports-athlete-turned-spy Xander Cage. However, for the 2005 sequel,
xXx: State of the Union, Ice Cube took over lead-role duties.
However, for
xXx 3,
the 47-year-old actor said, “I am going to do [it], which will be filming in part in the Philippines, which I’m very, very, very excited about.”
Vin Diesel’s burgeoning movie CV includes the two sci-fi thrillers
Pitch Black (2000) and
The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), in which he plays Riddick, and the ongoing
The Fast and the Furious franchise, which saw him play opposite
the late Paul Walker. The latest,
Fast & Furious 7, which had to be halted when Walker died in a car crash last year, but resumed production earlier this year, is now scheduled for a 2015 release.
Currently, Diesel is helping to promote Marvel’s
Guardians of the Galaxy, which also stars Chris Pratt (
The Lego Movie) and
Doctor Who’s
Karen Gillan.
