Paramount Pictures will globally distribute Vin Diesel‘s new film, “xXx: The Return of Xander Cage,” the studio announced Thursday.
Revolution Studios, Roth Kirschenbaum Films and Diesel’s One Race Films will produce the action movie in which the actor will reprise his role as the titular extreme athlete/spy.
The film is currently shooting in Toronto, and additional filming is set to take place in the Dominican Republic.
Sony released the first “xXx” film in 2002, which grossed $142 million, as well as the 2005 sequel “xXx: State of the Union.”
“I am Number Four’s” D.J. Caruso is directing the third installment, while Chad St. John (“London Has Fallen”) and F. Scott Frazier wrote the script.
The third installment in the franchise will find Xander Cage (Diesel) coming out of exile, colliding with a deadly alpha warrior named Xiang and his team while trying to recover an unstoppable weapon known as Pandora’s Box.
“We are extremely pleased to be working with Vin, Samantha, Joe, Kirsch and Paramount to bring this fan-favorite franchise back to the screen,” said Revolution CEO Vince Totino, who is executive producing the film for the studio along with COO Scott Hemming. “‘xXx’ is one of the jewels in Revolution’s rich library of commercially successful and acclaimed films, and now with Vin on board, a great script and director D.J. Caruso on hand, we are poised to deliver a worthy successor.”
Samuel L. Jackson and Nina Dobrev are set to star in the action film that is looking at a 2017 release.
On Jan. 30, Diesel shared photos from set, one of which showing the actor on a motorcycle in front of a green screen, tangled up with a woman.