Ice Cube to replace the Iron Giant in XXX2!

Hey folks, Harry here... the trades announced today that Ice Cube is going to step in for Vin Diesel on Triple X 2 (XXX2). The first reaction is sort of... whoa... really? I mean, wasn't Vin Diesel supposed to be the anchor of that franchise? Then, the thought hits me, wouldn't it be alternatively cool to have a spy franchise where each film had a different lead and a different creative team... but offered that same intense spy action? I guess. It's like, all of a sudden, the XXX franchise is set to be a spy anthology film series instead of a regular franchise. That's neat, but then... why not just call them different things altogether? OH YEAH - branding. This is a fascinating experiment though - a studio branding a high profile series by way of Title association, rather than star association.

For years, I've wanted to see the BOND films take a vaguely similar trick. Get great directors to take the Bond films in radically different directions... from film to film. Get Tarantino to do one, Peter Jackson to do one, Scorsese to do one... All of whom, have expressed a passion for Bond in the past. Let them make him Period, future, present.... PG-13, R, bloody, erotic, adventure, intrigue. Take the tones and explore wildly with them. Make one like 3 DAYS OF THE CONDOR and another like GOLDFINGER... shake it up, don't stir.

Anyway, this is an intriguing move by REVOLUTION, let's see where it goes. Getting Lee Tamahori to direct is interesting, specially since he just did Bond... I'm curious to see if they let Lee get bloody on this one or if he'll still wear the gloves. I've still got one little question though... wasn't Triple X named that because of that tattoo on the back of his neck and that it was his EXTREME SPORTS background? I didn't think that was an agency identification. Wonder if Sam Jackson will be back?