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Vin Diesel Confirms a Sequel Is in the Works to "The Last Witch Hunter"

Published Tue, 10 Mar 2020 09:15:23 -0500

When it comes to a guy chasing his creative dreams on the big screen no one is better at it than Vin Diesel. One could argue that the Fast and Furious series exists because of this drive. The various movies that have come out of Pitch Black and one of those movies was absolutely The Last Witch Hunter. It came out in 2015 and didn't make much of a splash. At the time of writing it has a critics score of 17% on Rotten Tomatoes and an audience score of 43%. On a budget of somewhere between $71-90 million dollars, it only made $146 million. So it could have broken even at best but didn't light the world on fire and was forgotten before the end of 2015. Collider recently spoke to Diesel about movies falling short of expectations and what that means.

"When a Last Witch Hunter comes out and it doesn't destroy the box office you, under the old thinking, would go, 'Well, maybe I should focus on something else.' But nowadays what's fascinating is that movies find you somehow."

Diesel is talking about VOD, streaming, there are a million ways to watch movies these days and when you have smaller budgets you don't have to rely entirely on the box office to make back your money. You can do fine at the box office, like The Last Witch Hunter, and then look at streaming and VOD and more to see if maybe there is a cult following for this movie that didn't light the world on fire the first time around.

"As an artist, the more experienced I get, the more I am appreciating just the fact that my work somehow finds you and that you get to experience it at your own time and at your own pace, and I'm less concerned – and maybe it's because of accolades. Maybe it's because I'm a part of Avengers or I'm a part of Disney, I'm a part of Guardians and I'm a part of Fast and I've had so much of that wonderful experience that I think the higher thinking becomes – when people tell me that they love the Witch Hunter, and they want to see Michael Caine and I go into another one, I go, 'Wow!'"

So it sounds like Diesel has heard from fans that they liked this silly little movie that he made five years ago and he believes there is a market out there for another one of these movies. Diesel succeeds at the box office more than he fails and he revealed that Lionsgate is interested in doing a sequel to The Last Witch Hunter.

"Lionsgate is coming and saying, 'We're putting a writer on for the next one.' That's kinda cool! … And this is just recent, by the way. But it's funny that you mentioned Last Witch Hunter because I'm in a meeting with Lionsgate and they're actively creating the sequel to The Last Witch Hunter."

Does a writer being put on a movie mean that it's going to happen? Not even a little, there are plenty of movies that wallow in development hell, but Diesel does have the Fast and Furious success behind him with Universal and his involvement with Marvel and the Guardians of the Galaxy at Disney/Marvel. If Bloodshot does well that gives him a franchise at Sony at well. We can't really blame Lionsgate for wanting their own franchise with Diesel and if they get that by letting him make a sequel to The Last Witch Hunter then there we are.

Summary: After he and his wife are suddenly assassinated, Marine Ray Garrison is reborn by a team of scientists. Enhanced with nanotechnology, he becomes a superhuman, biotech killing machine – Bloodshot. As Ray first trains with fellow super-soldiers, he struggles to recall anything from his previous years. But when his memories flood back and he remembers the man that killed both him and his wife, he breaks out of the facility hellbent on revenge, only to discover that there's more to the conspiracy than he originally felt.

Bloodshot, directed by David S. F. Wilson, stars Vin Diesel, Eiza González, Sam Heughan, Toby Kebbell, and Guy Pearce. It will be released on March 13, 2020.

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