The latest cinematic adventure of Riddick, the vicious yet resourceful criminal anti-hero played by Vin Diesel who first appeared in the 2000 sci-fi thriller Pitch Black and later returned in his own big-budget adventure The Chronicles of Riddick in 2004, has slowly been gaining momentum since it was first announced nearly two years ago. We previously reported on the new film, which will be simply titled Riddick, HERE and HERE . Today Diesel has released a piece of concept art on his Facebook page. You can check out the full image below this article.

The independently-financed film will reportedly discard the elaborate mythology that Diesel and writer-director David Twohy were initially developing for Riddick to explore and take the character back to basics, putting him into a struggle for survival on a hostile alien planet that will make every other battle he has fought in his life seem like a prelude. Riddick finds himself pitted against otherworldly beasts and mercenaries out for his blood. The project has an undetermined 2012 release date.

The beautiful concept piece, courtesy of artist Vance Kovacs, is called “The Final Stand of Riddick” and depicts the likely finale of the film which will find Riddick taking on a literal army of monsters as an epic thunderstorm rages. There also seems to be a fire and smoke coming from a nearby mountain so maybe there will be a volcanic eruption to make things even more interesting for Riddick, but don’t take my word for it.

Along with the concept art Diesel also released this statement on Facebook:

“The road to the ‘R’ rating, that so many of you were vocal about, has been a long one. The advantage, however (never empower the negatives), was that we were allowed a really extensive pre-production process.” “The art work is so good, the artists have really outdone themselves in illustrating this world at its early stage. When this film comes to the screen… know that you willed it into being!” “I got two meetings today that I have been prepping for… one with the Director and another one with the head of the studio to discuss casting and the 2012 release date.”

I’m glad that Twohy and Diesel are taking the time to put this movie together, getting the script right and developing the look of the film. Based on the information that has either been officially released or leaked out about this movie it looks Riddick could not only be better than Chronicles and Pitch Black but also one of the best balls-out sci-fi action flicks ever made. One can only hope.

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[Source: Facebook via Dread Central ]