Over the past couple of weeks Vin Diesel has been teasing fans about a recent meeting with Marvel Studios, and during Friday’s Riddick panel at the San Diego Comic-Con, the Fast & Furious star stated that “there is some very big news coming at the end of this month” with regards tohim joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Of course, the perfect time for an official announcement on Diesel’s casting would have been Marvel’s big Hall H presentation on Saturday, but instead the studio chose to focus on its upcoming Phase Two offerings Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Age of Ultron. And according to Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige, there’s a good reason for the lack of an announcement, as there’s simply nothing to announce just yet.
“Well, here’s what I will tell you about Vin,” Feige tells The Huffington Post. “And I’ll be very honest with you. We did a press day on the Captain America set last week or something. The very first question was, ‘So how did the meeting with Vin Diesel go?’ I went, ‘Here’s the funny thing, it hasn’t happened yet. It happens at 3 p.m. today.’ And they went, ‘Oh, really?’ And it did and he came by and met. So, I’ll say two things: One, there’s nothing to announce with Vin. Vin is an amazing guy and an amazing personality [but] it’s so far ahead it may not even exist. So, there’s nothing to announce. But, I love Vin and he’s an amazing personality. Look how much attention he’s gotten for a meeting. He’s incredibly shrewd. He’s got a Riddick movie that I can’t wait to see. And the Fast & Furious franchise, in addition to Vin, is a franchise I admire a lot for turning the sixth and next year the seventh into the biggest and most popular one. As far as a piece of it? Could someday we do a Luke Cage: Hero for Hire in that kind of vein. Totally.”
So, does that mean we can scratch Diesel from the list of possibilities for Thanos and The Vision (assuming he appears in Age of Ultron)? Unless Feige is keeping his cards very close to his chest, then it certainly appears so…
Originally published July 22, 2013. Updated December 13, 2019.
