Entertainment Weekly - 04.2020

HOW TO BUILD

A FRANCHISE

VIN DIESEL FRANCHISES—FAST & FURIOUS,

RIDDICK, AND XXX—HAVE MADE $6 BILLION

WORLDWIDE. WITH HIS LATEST VENTURE,

BLOODSHOT, THE STAR SHARES HIS SECRETS.

By Derek Lawrence

↖ Vin Diesel

says his love of

Dungeons &

Dragons influenced

his approach to

franchises. “What

was so alluring

about D&D was

creating worlds.”

↓ From left Diesel

with Paul Walker

in The Fast

and the Furious;

in XXX; in Riddick;

in Bloodshot

VIN DIESEL LIVES HIS LIFE ONE

blockbuster series at a time. But

that wasn’t always the case. “The

irony is, I asked Universal to not

make a sequel to the first Fast &

Furious. I felt they would compro-

mise the ability for it to be a classic,”

he says. Eight(!) sequels later, Fast

leads his portfolio, along with the

Riddick and XXX trilogies. Here,

he reveals franchise do’s and don’ts.

1 / DO embrace change (and when

Spielberg gives you advice, listen).

“Allow characters to evolve,” says

Diesel, 52, pointing to Fast’s

transition from “car movie” to

world-saving saga. “I remember

Steven Spielberg saying, ‘You’re

doing all these different kinds of

movies and it’s kind of insane.’ I

said, ‘Is it bad?’ And he said, ‘No,

keep defying expectations.’ ”

2 / DON’T be afraid to walk away.

With both The Fast and the Furi-

ous and XXX, Diesel toplined hits

but didn’t stick around for their

sequels. “Sometimes you have to

say no and stand for the integrity

you hope to manifest in a film,”

says Diesel, who returned for the

third film in both series. “Taking a

pause is necessary when you want

to really think about where you

want to take something.”

3 / DO fight for your rights.

Diesel signed an unusual deal to

appear in 2006’s The Fast and the

Furious: Tokyo Drift in exchange

for the rights to Riddick, which

allowed him to control the charac-

ter’s future. “Make films that

you’re invested in, and the rest will

follow,” says Diesel, who serves as

a producer on all his tentpoles. “It

makes me have to be that much

more hands-on and accountable.”

4 / DON’T shy away from unproven

properties.

Diesel is no stranger to superhero

stories. He is, after all, Groot.

But, like his other hits, Bloodshot

(out now)Ñin which he plays Ray

Garrison, a Marine who is mur-

dered and then reborn as an

enhanced killing machine—is much

more of an unknown in the genre.

“Sometimes the challenges are

what’s fun,” he says. “I’ve had the

great fortune of being offered

well-known superheroes in the

past, and the timing wasn’t right for

me. This felt like an underdog.” �

52 APRIL 2020 EW ● COM

DIESEL: MICHAEL SCHWARTZ/TRUNK ARCHIVE;

THE FAST & THE FURIOUS

: BOB MARSHAK/UNIVERSAL;

XXX

: ©COLUMBIA PICTURES/EVERETT COLLECTION;

RIDDICK

: JAN THIJS/UNIVERSAL;

BLOODSHOT

: GRAHAM BARTHOLOMEW/SONY

APRIL2020.MOVIES2.LO C.indd 52 FINAL 3/3/20 12:45 PM