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Break On Through
Vin Diesel and Reese Witherspoon heated up summer with career-making hits.

By Amy Lamare, August 8, 2001

This summer, it seemed a new film would claim the title of box-office champ each week only to be knocked off its perch the following weekend. Critics, journalists, studio chiefs, and the movie-going public have struggled to proclaim a clear-cut winner amongst this summer's films. And while this may be the case with films, it's not the case with their stars. Two actors bowed in two films that took everyone by surprise.

Vin Diesel in The Fast and the Furious took the country by storm when his film bowed on June 22 with a surprising .1 million box-office take. The Rob Cohen directed street-racing flick has taken in .9 million to date at the box office.

So, what will the future hold for this rising star? Diesel will appear in Knockaround Guys for New Line slated for a Halloween 2001 release. Knockaround follows four sons of well-known gangsters who travel to a small Montana town in search of a bundle of cash.

Also look for Diesel in Triple X as a leaner and meaner James Bond for the 21st century. Diesel plays an extreme sports competitor hired by the government to infiltrate a crime ring. Triple X re-teams Diesel with Furious director Rob Cohen.

Hot Projects: Diesel snags lead in "XXX"

By Guylaine Cadorette, Hollywood.com Staff

HOLLYWOOD, August 3, 2001 -- Looks like Vin Diesel is not about to disappear any time soon. After The Fast and the Furious made a sneak attack at the box office in June, Diesel has inked a deal to star in Revolution Studios' XXX.

The project will reunite the actor with Furious director Rob Cohen and producer Neal Moritz. The script was written by Airheads and Glory Daze scribe Rich Wilkes.

Revolution Studios exec Todd Garner described XXX as a spy thriller with extreme attitude in music and style. The project, however, is not based on the Dark Horse comic book by the same name.

The plot centers on a tough extreme sports player (Diesel), who is co-opted by the government to infiltrate a crime ring. Sounds like the perfect role for the hulking actor.

Diesel hits pay dirt

XXX, which begins shooting this fall, will earn the actor the hefty sum of million. That's quite a raise from the .5 million Diesel earned for his role in the upcoming El Diablo and even better than the low seven figures he reportedly received for Furious. Could Diesel be on his way to joining the million-and-over club like evergreen members Mel Gibson, Jim Carrey, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone?

The million figure brought about some speculation as to whether Revolution Studios could even afford to have Diesel star in XXX, considering the substantial price tag attached. Along with Diesel, the studio was also considering Trainspotting actor Ewan McGregor. But concessions were apparently made to get Diesel his asking price without breaking the bank, or the film's million or so budget.

When did he get so popular?

When Furious topped the box office in June, Cohen told Variety, "To say that I am surprised and stunned is a wild understatement."

The actioner was originally slated for a spring release but stepped up to the summer schedule after extremely favorable test screenings.

Diesel's pre-Furious repertoire includes The Iron Giant, Boiler Room, Pitch Black and Saving Private Ryan. He also wrote, directed, produced and starred in the 1995 short film Multi-Facial, which caught Steven Spielberg's attention at the Cannes Film Festival. The film focuses on an actor struggling to get roles because of his race.

But with the runaway success of Furious, it seems Diesel was the one holding the trump card in the negotiations for XXX.

It's all about the sequels

Moritz has already confirmed that talks are under way for a sequel to Furious. If the project ever makes its way into production, Diesel would most likely come back to reprise his role as Dom, but at what price?

Recently, Universal Studios and director David Twohy were able to woo Diesel into making a sequel to Pitch Black called The Chronicles of Riddick. The film would follow the continuing adventures of Riddick, a prisoner (Diesel) who ends up protecting his captors from aliens on a hostile planet.

Diesel is also in talks to star alongside Schwarzenegger in Terminator 3.

What's next?

Along with El Diablo, Diesel will also star with John Malkovich and Dennis Hopper in the long-awaited Knockaround Guys and has been mentioned for a role in the remake of M with troubled rapper DMX.

The comic book fan has denied rumors about any attachment to the big screen adaptation of Hellboy. Diesel told SCIFIWire.com in June, "Absolutely none, except for my admiration for the project," he said in an interview. "This won't be the first time that I find out what my next project is from a team of reporters." One thing remains certain: this juggernaut of an actor may become one of the baddest action figures in films to come.

XXX has been earmarked for a summer 2002 release.

Vin Diesel has presence, a calm rangy presence that fills his suite in London's Dorchester Hotel.

Imposing but genial, the 6ft 4in New Yorker lounges on a settee barely able to accommodate his muscular frame and speaks in a long, slow, deep rasp. The voice exudes a laidback confidence which is hardly surprising. At 33, Diesel may not be the youngest star in the Hollywood firmament, but he has made his years spent in obscurity work in his favour. Back in February, when his first two major on-screen roles, in the indie drama Boiler Room and the sci-fi thriller Pitch Black, hit US cinemas on the same weekend, American critics hailed him as the first major star of the new millennium.

The roles provide a sharp contrast. In Boiler Room he's a besuited telemarketer, a shopfloor dynamo in illegal stock trading who reveals a surprisingly tender side. But it is as Riddick, the sinister blood-sucking multi-murderer who oozes a sexual menace and malicious intent, yet emerges as a possible saviour for the cast of Pitch Black marooned on a distant planet, that Diesel really makes his mark. Stealing a march on the summer blockbusters, the relatively low-budget film was an unexpected box-office smash. A sequel with four times the budget is planned and one of several Diesel-dedicated websites features him in a Riddick cartoon strip, while another invites readers to submit future Riddick storylines, which they have done - in their hundreds.

'It's bizarre, definitely bizarre. If you'd asked me as a kid what I wanted to be, I'd have said an actor,' he grins. 'And when everybody had stopped laughing, I'd have said, "And a superhero." Well that's exactly what's happened.'

But, as befits a guy who spent almost a decade working as a bouncer in the nightclubs of New York and Los Angeles, Diesel has all the angles covered. He has already written, directed and starred in two of his own films. Made on a shoestring budget, the full-length Strays (financed by a stint spent telemarketing, an invaluable aid to his future role in Boiler Room) and the short Multi-Facial may have only been seen on the festival circuit, but the latter was enough to convince Steven Spielberg to write a part for him in Saving Private Ryan, and for director Brad Bird to hire him to voice the lead role in the animated adaptation of the Ted Hughes poem The Iron Giant. Making the films has also given Diesel a keen perspective on his own career. Wary of being typecast by his physique, he chose to do Boiler Room 'because you get to see me in a suit. Seriously, it's actors insurance - films like that keep your credibility alive for people who aren't smart enough to look deep enough into sci-fi films.'

As an oversized, musclebound teenager with his sights set on the big screen, Diesel says that seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator and Mel Gibson in Mad Max were empowering experiences. Gibson remains a touchstone. 'I'd like to see myself like him - in a position where I can make any film I want to make.'

Born and raised in New York's Greenwich Village, he was the son of a theatre manager/drama teacher father and a mother who combined astrology and psychology. The family - he has two sisters and a twin brother - lived in heavily subsidised apartments for non-profit-making artists. 'You had a wonderful community of jazz musicians, sculptors, painters, dancers - everyone was creating, being their artistic selves. It meant working for art rather than being governed by money, which is probably why I've never made any during much of my life.'

He discovered acting for himself - at the tender age of seven he had his first paying role in a local experimental theatre. 'I became ambitious very early. I was an extrovert of the highest calibre,' he recalls. 'My little sister is 27, and people ask her what's it like now that big brother is a star. She says it doesn't feel new - "When he was running around the neighbourhood and when he was a bouncer everyone knew me as Vin's little sister." 'I was the kid everyone knew, the one in the family who was always pushing.'

Vincent is the family surname - as a young actor he adopted his stage moniker and prefers to keep his real Christian name and 'complicated' ethnic make-up a mystery. Was there much competition between him and his non-identical twin Paul, now a film editor? 'I imagine early on there was, but not now he's so far ahead of me - he has a family and two beautiful kids - that anything I do pales in comparison. For me, having a family is the ultimate dream, but it's nowhere on the horizon. It's why I did The Iron Giant - I wanted a five or six-year-old kid to go to school and be able to tell their friends my dad is the Iron Giant.'

Preparing for the sleek, panther-like Riddick in Pitch Black he changed his physique by taking up yoga and pilates - the compulsive weight training that began at 15 and became a virtual addiction when he reached his twenties has slackened considerably and changes depending on what is required for his next role. But the weight training was essential for the periods he spent employed as a bouncer, a job which he insists taught him a lot. 'You have to execute diplomacy and read people in ways that are imperative to your existence. You're not a cop, you don't have a gun or a bulletproof vest. You have to decide when to be physical and when to be diplomatic. The novelty wore off after a couple of years - it was too dangerous a lifestyle for me to be involved in. There was a lot of degenerates, you get that in any community, the scumbags who wanted to ruin everyone else's party. That's who we went after, like if a guy squeezed a girl's ass it was a problem that could be rectified in many ways. I viewed it in a heroic fashion - when you come to this club you're going to have fun, you don't have to worry about anything - you got me to look after you.'

Diesel had abandoned Multi-Facial - 'kind of about race and identity, hard to explain, you have to see it' - when his father persuaded him to finish it. Someone sent a tape to Spielberg who invited him to meet him on the set of Amistad. 'He said it touched him - he was very generous. That was a special day. We talked only for 25 minutes but it was very deep. We immediately connected. The next thing I knew I was on a plane to London to shoot Saving Private Ryan. Surreal.'

And yet he seems remarkably unfazed by developments since Spielberg conferred his Midas touch - 'that's because I'm not 16'. Next up he stars alongside John Malkovich and Dennis Hopper in Knockaround Guys. He calls his own production company One Race because 'in the earlier part of my career nobody knew what to do with me but now I find I can do so many things because I come from origins that are a little ambiguous. I think I represent a certain future.' Currently he's developing Doorman, the script based on his time as a bouncer, and a romance centring on a group of Navy SEALS who return from black ops. Meantime he's heavily involved in discussions about how Riddick's character will develop in the Pitch Black sequel.

There is also a suggestion that with Arnie possibly past his sell-by date or disinclined to return to the role, that Diesel may be his possible replacement for the third instalment in the Terminator series. He makes no secret that it would be a childhood dream come true, but cautions, 'I've learned to take one thing at a time'. Even so, if it came to the crunch and Arnie and he had to go mano a mano to get the role, who would win? 'He would destroy me,' says Diesel in that slow, soft growl. 'I'm a teddy bear.' Cuddle up, if you think you're hard enough.

July 6, 2001

Will Vin Be Our New Terminator?

Much to Hollywood's dissappointment, rumors that Vin would take on the role as the next Terminator were just that-rumors.

Apparently syndicated columnist Cindy Pearlman's wishful thinking began the rumors, but the spokesman of Diesel's One Race Productions says the Vin hasn't even talked to Schwarzenegger. If anything, Vin would be the film's villain, not the star. However, nothing is wriiten in stone, as the project's status is at the moment questionable, due to a pending strke.

Hellboy

Genre: Horror/Comic Book Adaptation.
Studio: Unknown.
Production Company: Lawrence Gordon Productions/Dark Horse Entertainment.
Project Phase: Development Hell.
Who's In It: Vin Diesel (Hellboy, attached).
Who's Making It: Guillermo del Toro (Director); Guillermo del Toro, Peter Briggs (Screenwriters); Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin, Mike Richardson (Producers); based on the Mike Mignola Hellboy series of comic books.

Premise: In 1944 a group of Nazis who were dabbling in the occult tried to bring a demonic force into the world to use against their enemies. An Allied strike team intercepted the Nazis and stopped their sinister plan, but not before something came into our world. Sitting in their circle of power was what appeared to be a red-skinned, horned child - literally a demon - with an enigmatic left hand fashioned from shaped metal.

Fifty years later, this demon child has grown into adulthood. Instead of being an instrument of destruction, he has championed himself for the forces of good. When reports of strange and unusual phenomena reach America's Bureau for Paranormal Research and Development , he's the fella usually assigned to check it out. He's Hellboy, and if you can get over the fact he's supposed to be a demon, he'll probably buy you a beer.

Release Date: Unknown.

Comments: The world's greatest paranormal investigator is about to hit the big screen. He's big, red, has a mechanical left hand but he's really just one of the guys. Mignola's stories may be inspired by Bram Stoker, H.P. Lovecraft and Mary Shelley but his Hellboy is more in the vein of Detective John McClane from Die Hard than Tim Curry's Dark One from Legend.

In our humble opinion, there are three wonderful assets of the comic that are essential to craft a faithful Hellboy movie:

One: Hellboy must act like an average guy in a fantastic situation. Even though you're constantly reminded that he's probably from somewhere close to aich-ee-double hockey sticks he's consistenly written as if he's a normal joe doing his regular job (which just happens to be battling vampires, werewolfs and the occasional demonic frog.) That very 'average guy' quality is what makes his character so damn appealing - the reader relates to Hellboy even moreso.

Two: The dark atmosphere and the unusual depictions of the monsters. Teamed up with Mignola's minimalist art and the book's dark, forboding inking and coloring, you'd half-expect Agents Mulder and Scully to walk on-panel...but it works perfectly. Add to that Mignola's take on traditional monsters (he relies heavily upon the original European mythology) and the occasional bizarre creature (like we said, his demonic frogs are enough to creep you out) and a new niche of horror-adventure is created.

Three: The well-written secondary characters. Mignola isn't afraid to let the book's other characters in the Bureau shine, and when they do you want to see more. Liz and Abe - we want 'em in there!

It's all in the execution. Now that we know Hellboy's creator will be keeping a close eye on the translation of his buddy, chances are good things will work out just fine. And hopefully one summer day in the near future theater-goers will be able to see just what the rest of us have been enjoying for the past few years...and maybe we'll get to see just how the big red guy files down his horns!

Has Vin Got a Girl?

When last I'd heard, which was on Vin's live chat on MSN, Vin reported that he was not presently involved with anyone, but possibly looking. However, I found out a little more info on the status of his love life. Keep in mind that this may not be true. Nothing can be called completely true unless it comes directly from Vin himself! Check this out and if you want, send me any new info you have on this story.

This report is from the New York Daily Times. They report that although Vin and co-star Michelle Rodriguez(Fast and the Furious)formed a relationship as friends on the set, that relationship may have become more serious now. The two supposedly fell for each other on the set. Apparently they were seen "canoodling" at the New York hot spot Float on last Thursday night. In an interview with Howard Stern, Rodriguez was reported to have said that Vin "will be a part of my life for a long time." I'll be keeping close tabs on this story, and if I come across any more info, I'll publish it in the newsletter. If you want updates, be sure to join our online newsletter at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Mistress_Dieselite