Diesel's Cameo In "Tokyo Drift" Made "Riddick" Possible

It seems we owe this week's cinematic return of  Vin Diesel's anti-hero "Riddick" to one thing--2006's "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" reports Variety.

Diesel made a cameo appearance as Dom in that film. Rather than collecting an acting fee though, he got something else - he and his One Race Films production company won the rights to the Riddick character.

At the time Universal wasn't keen on moving forward with the franchise after the big-budget flop of "The Chronicles of Riddick," in 2004 so they let it go.

Ironically, Universal Pictures is distributing the film with an equity position in the new $35-40 million budget film. Whether we'll see more sequels depends on how big the box-office take is on the new film.