Hollywood is a place fuelled by the human ego. It is a glittering monument to those for whom the world revolves around. It’s where those egos gorge on pandering attention until it becomes a bloated mess that resembles a potato more than a human. Let’s take note of six recent examples of rampant egos in action.
6. Vin Diesel Depicts His Street Racer Character As a Messiah
Vin Diesel is…an odd man. When he isn’t creeping out reporters he’s running his Fast and Furious, Riddick and xXx franchises. He acts as producer on many of these films, giving him more control over his depiction in these films than the average actor. This makes the opening sequence of Fate of the Furious a bit questionable, because Dom Toretto has evolved from a street racer and criminal to some social messiah, arriving in Cuba and teaching the people that they should stand up to those who oppress them and nothing is more important than respect for each other. He doesn’t really do much to earn this, Dom wins a street race and doesn’t take the winnings. Instead he elects to teach the local thug the importance of respect…somehow. It’s a weird, preachy turn for the character that seems to be more about Diesel’s ego than character development.
5. Vin Diesel Has a Contract to Ensure He Doesn’t Lose Fights Onscreen
This would be further up the list IF it was confirmed. Sadly we are unable to determine if it is true or not – the story is that Vin Diesel doesn’t want anyone to think he would lose a fight. To ensure this there is a clause in his contract to prevent this. One scene that supports this claim comes in Fast 5 when Vin gets into a fight with Dwayne Johnson’s character, an agent looking to bring him in. The fight ends, weirdly, with Diesel winning the fight but then surrendering himself…that’s either weird script writing or feeding into someones ego.
4. Vin Diesel Tries to Build an Entire Franchise About His Break-Out Role
Pitch Black was a pretty good movie. It was about a spaceship crew who get stranded on a planet populated by deadly monsters who only come out in the dark. The wild card in this situation of one Richard Riddick, a dangerous prisoner in transport who would either be the groups saviour or downfall. This role was Vin’s step into Hollywood. Sadly he failed to grasp what the appeal of the character was (being mysterious and unpredictable) and instead thought that everyone wanted to know more about him, so we got prequels and video games based around Richard Riddick being a badass. The promised trilogy stopped after one film.
3. Vin Diesel Founded A Game Company to Make A Game About Himself
With the clunking failure of the Riddick movies you might be wondering who made the (admittedly well received) video game. And then made it again. And then made another one. Well, that would be Tigon Studios…which was created by Vin Diesel for the express purpose of making Riddick games. To quote the show ‘Zero Punctuation’: “We all like to jerk off Mister Diesel but most people don’t try to make a franchise out of the sticky tissues.”
2. Vin Diesel Made a Movie About His D&D Character
It’s no secret that Vin Diesel is an avid Dungeons & Dragons fan. He has his character’s name (‘Kaulder’) tattooed on his stomach. He took his adoration for his fantasy alter-ego up a notch when he produced and starred in a movie based on Kaulder entitled The Last Witch Hunter. Long before they’d finished production Vin Diesel was speaking publicly about making it the first part of a larger franchise. That was, of course, before it bombed at the box office and fared poorly with critics.
1. Vin Diesel is Planning a Sequel and Video Games Based on His D&D Character
Oh goddamn it. Really? Last word was that ol’ Vin had the sequel to The Last Witch Hunter in the ‘planning stages’. There was also plans to give it the Riddick treatment by putting out a game. There’s no-one who loves a Vin Diesel project like Vin Diesel and only Vin Diesel.
