Despite some recent financial headaches that halted filming for two months, the production of the upcoming Riddick, which will bring Vin Diesel back to the star-making role he first played in the 2000 sci-fi thriller Pitch Black, is moving full-speed ahead.

The David Twohy-directed sequel has just added a new player to its growing cast: according to Variety, Jordi Molla, the Spanish actor who has played outsized heavies in big-budget action movies such as Knight and Day and Bad Boys II, is currently in negotiations to play the role of “Santana, a mercenary who heads up an eight-man crew tasked with finding and killing Riddick.” The actor was recently seen as the villain in the Zoe Saldana action flick Colombiana.

I like this casting choice; Molla is an excellent, intense character actor who has shown considerable acting skill in the underrated The Alamo, alongside Johnny Depp in Blow, and in Steven Soderbergh’s Che. He joins a supporting cast that includes Karl Urban, returning as Lord Vaako from the previous sequel The Chronicles of Riddick, and Katee Sackhoff of Battlestar Galactica fame, who was just recently cast.

Riddick is being financed independently and is currently in production in Montreal. Universal Pictures will distribute the film. There is no release date set as of yet.

[Source: Variety]