XXX: Return of Xander Cage

• 1. Introduction

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  XXX: Return of Xander Cage began its public life with a nickname. On the 23rd of August 2015, Vin Diesel told his Instagram followers, "While I was filming xXx, guys on set called me Air Diesel." He added that the time to return had come, and that filming would start in the Philippines that December. The post revived Xander Cage, an extreme athlete turned spy, in a film that reached cinemas in 2017. An earlier sequel had written the character out of the story by supposedly killing him. How does a franchise bring back a man it has declared dead? Why did a film that critics met with a shrug become the most successful entry in its series? And why is a fourth chapter still stuck on the drawing board all these years later?

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• 2. A Hero Declared Dead

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  When xXx arrived in 2002, director Rob Cohen already had a grand plan for it. He called the franchise he imagined "anarchistic," with a new setting in every film and no returning faces apart from Vin Diesel as Xander Cage. Cohen was working on a sequel and sketching a third and fourth film. He had two scripts in development. One was set in Southeast Asia and involved pirates in the Malacca strait. The other was set in Washington, D.C., and involved the United States Secret Service.

  Rich Wilkes wrote one of those scripts, according to Diesel, while an unnamed writer produced the other. Diesel wanted the Wilkes version because it excited him the most. Even so, he turned down the second film, xXx: State of the Union, because the script "didn't feel xXx" to him. That sequel explained his absence by supposedly killing Xander Cage.

  In 2006, Diesel announced that he would come back anyway, in a sequel called xXx: The Return of Xander Cage. The character's death would simply be explained away. Cohen was set to return as well. Diesel promised the style and music of the original, with extreme stunts and a heavy metal soundtrack. Joe Roth was in talks to produce. Cohen said he had approached Sony and was working with the writers of Terminator 3 and Terminator Salvation. His pitch was to "bring back the extreme sports guy who's drafted to be a spy."

  On the 10th of June 2009, Cohen dropped out to direct the action film Medieval. On the 26th of August 2009, SlashFilm announced that Ericson Core would direct, with production starting in early 2010. By April 2010 the financing had moved. Paramount Pictures, not Sony, would pay for the film, and it would be shot in 3D. Reports at that point also had Cohen back in the director's chair. Diesel would produce, joined by executive producers Gloria S. Borders, Scott Hemming, Ric Kidney and Vince Totino. The next public confirmation came in January 2014, when Diesel said work on the sequel was under way.

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• 3. Casting Shuffle

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  On the 10th of October 2015, reports named D. J. Caruso as the director, working from a script by F. Scott Frazier. Diesel announced that UFC fighter Conor McGregor had been cast and that Samuel L. Jackson would reprise Augustus Gibbons. In April 2016, McGregor withdrew to focus on his training and the UFC. Michael Bisping replaced him and ended up playing Hawk, a member of Xiang's team.

  On the 1st of January 2016, Twitch Film reported that Tony Jaa, Jet Li and Deepika Padukone had been cast. Nina Dobrev and Ruby Rose followed within a week. Dobrev would play a witty and sarcastic tech specialist. Padukone would play a huntress who happens to be Cage's former lover, and Rose would play a sniper. Andrey Ivchenko was confirmed as another villain, since earlier reports had Li as an adversary.

  On the 6th of February 2016, Caruso revealed on Twitter that Kris Wu had joined the cast in a vital role. Six days later, on the 12th of February, reports said Jet Li had dropped out. Donnie Yen replaced him as the main antagonist, Xiang. On the 3rd of June 2016, Brazilian footballer Neymar was revealed as another addition, playing himself.

  Ice Cube, who had starred as Darius Stone in the 2005 sequel, was rumored to be returning. Confirmation did not come until January 2017.

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• 4. Pandora's Box

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  A falling satellite crashes onto NSA Agent Augustus Gibbons in Brazil just as he tries to recruit Neymar for the Triple-X program. Both appear to die on the spot. The crash sets off a hunt for Pandora's Box, a device that can bring satellites down as warheads. A team led by Xiang infiltrates a CIA office in New York and steals it. CIA agent Jane Marke then finds Xander Cage, who faked his own death and lives in the Dominican Republic, and persuades him to retrieve it.

  In London, Xander asks his old friend Ainsley for help, and the trail leads to the Philippines. At the RAF outpost in Lakenheath, a Special Forces unit under Paul Donovan, played by Tony Gonzalez, is assigned to assist him. Xander rejects them and builds his own crew. It includes the sharpshooter Adele Wolff and the DJ Nicky Zhou, known as Nicks and nicknamed "The Hood." It also includes the weapons expert Becky Clearidge, a former assistant of Gibbons. The getaway driver Tennyson Torch, played by Rory McCann, keeps a tally of every time he has driven a vehicle into something, and the count reaches 200.

  On a remote island, Xander meets Xiang in an underground nightclub. Xiang reveals that his own teammates Serena, Talon and Hawk are also xXx agents recruited by Gibbons. He says he took the Box to stop others from misusing it, while Serena wanted it destroyed. Russian soldiers then raid the island. Serena turns on Xiang, destroys the Box and joins Xander, and Xiang escapes to regroup with Talon and Hawk.

  Another satellite then falls on the Olympic Stadium in Moscow, and Marke concludes that the destroyed device was only a prototype. The real Box is with CIA Director Anderson in Detroit. Both teams race there, following the unusual signal the Box gives off. Anderson admits he caused the crash that killed Gibbons, and Wolff shoots him dead. Xander reluctantly lets the CIA arrest Xiang so he can be framed for the Moscow attack.

  On the way back to headquarters, Marke announces that the CIA has shut down the program and shoots Xander so she can keep the Box. She sends hitmen after the rest of the team, who fight back with help from former xXx operative Darius Stone. Xander survives because Becky's bulletproof vest stopped the shot. He joins Xiang to face Donovan, who punches equipment with bionic gloves. In a bathroom fight Donovan punches a toilet, which gives Xander an opening to throw him out.

  Marke uses the Box to send a satellite toward the warehouse, hoping to kill both teams. Xiang causes her to fall to her death and parachutes out with the device. Xander crashes a plane into the satellite and jumps clear, landing safely. Xiang hands over the Box, and Xander destroys it by stomping on it. Darius arrives in Xander's old car, and the two introduce themselves.

  At Gibbons' funeral, the man himself turns up alive. He faked his death and is rebuilding the program, and he is recruiting Neymar once again. Xander chooses to stay in service.

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• 5. Cameras and Score

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  Principal photography began on the 2nd of February 2016 at the Cinespace Film Studios facility on Kipling Avenue in Toronto. That was about two months after the December start Diesel had named. Crews also shot on location in Hamilton, Ontario. Filming ran until the 20th of May 2016 and included work at Pinewood Indomina Studios in the Dominican Republic and in the Philippines.

  Brian Tyler composed the original score alongside Robert Lydecker. The soundtrack album added songs and remixes by various artists, including Kris Wu, Nicky Jam and Ice Cube, all of whom also appear in the film.

  Tim Waggoner wrote the official novelization. The first audience for the finished film would gather in Mexico City, more than seven months after the cameras stopped.

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• 6. Box Office Surprise

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  The film premiered in Mexico City on the 5th of January 2017 and opened in India on the 14th of January. Paramount Pictures released it in the United States on the 20th of January in 2D, RealD 3D and IMAX 3D. In some countries it carried the title XXX: Reactivated.

  In North America it opened against Split, The Founder, The Resurrection of Gavin Stone and the wide expansion of 20th Century Women. Forecasts called for 16-20 million dollars from about 3,651 theaters. Thursday night previews brought in 1.2 million dollars from 2,536 theaters. The weekend total reached 20 million dollars, good for second place behind Split at 40.2 million. That made it the second-highest debut in the xXx franchise.

  The worldwide picture looked far better. The opening weekend brought in 70.5 million dollars, almost the 71.1 million that State of the Union earned during its entire theatrical run.

  China supplied the surprise. Paramount placed Donnie Yen ahead of Vin Diesel on some posters there and shared clips of his performance on the Chinese social media site Weibo. The film opened at number one in China with 61.9 million dollars. It passed 100 million dollars in only six days, including 22.2 million on Valentine's Day, after reviews praising Yen spread across Chinese social media. Kris Wu mattered too. His music video for a song on the soundtrack drew 40 million views before the Chinese release. The film joined Terminator Genisys and Warcraft as the only Hollywood releases to earn 100 million dollars in China without earning that much in the United States.

  The final worldwide gross was 346.3 million dollars, set against a production budget of 85 million. Of that total, 44.9 million came from the United States and Canada, and 301.4 million came from other territories, with China the largest. It became the highest-grossing film for both the franchise and Revolution Studios.

  Home viewers could buy it digitally from the 2nd of May 2017, and on Blu-ray and DVD two weeks later, on the 16th of May.

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• 7. Critics Divided

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  Rotten Tomatoes gave XXX: Return of Xander Cage an approval rating of 46 percent, based on 147 reviews, with an average rating of 4.9 out of 10. The site's consensus said the film should satisfy fans of the first two installments but could not escape "a tired storyline." Metacritic arrived at a weighted average of 42 out of 100 from 25 critics, which it labels mixed or average reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore were kinder and gave it an A-.

  Andrew Lapin of Uproxx wrote a negative review. He compared the series unfavorably with the Fast and Furious films and said xXx was "striving only to be marketable, not inventive." He also complained that the series had stopped imitating James Bond and often put the sidekicks ahead of Xander himself.

  Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle praised Diesel as an action hero and singled out Toni Collette for her performance. He still found that "the action becomes repetitive and tiresome." Leah Pickett of the Chicago Reader called the film "only slightly less dumb and nonsensical than the previous films." She nonetheless praised the action and the stunt work of Diesel and Donnie Yen.

  The Teen Choice Awards on the 13th of August 2017 listed the film in several categories. They included Choice Action Movie, Choice Action Movie Actor for Diesel, and Choice Action Movie Actress for Ruby Rose, Nina Dobrev and Deepika Padukone. Padukone and Rose were also listed together in the Choice Movie Ship category.

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• 8. Fourth Film Limbo

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  In January 2017, Diesel told Variety that Paramount had already contacted him about a fourth film. D. J. Caruso confirmed on Twitter that all the major cast members would return. Producer Joe Roth also spoke to Variety about the financing of such big-budget films and said, "The H Collective is a welcome and exciting new company that we look forward to working with."

  On the 20th of November 2018, Deadline reported that Jay Chou and Zoe Zhang had been cast. In September 2023, the fourth film was said to be still in development. Production could not begin until Diesel finished his work on the eleventh Fast and Furious film.

  A 2024 article by Deadline told a different story. The film had stalled because of financial problems at The H Collective and litigation over the film rights to the xXx franchise. Who controls those rights now stands between Xander Cage and any return.

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