xXxIt was about 4 years ago when Vin Diesel told us that we should expect to see him in at least 1 more "xXx" flick.

A year passed before we would hear anything further on the possibility of the threequel, when director Rob Cohen was asked about it during an interview while doing press for the then upcoming "Alex Cross" movie he helmed.

Cohen, talking to Crave Online, talked about his plans to bring back Xander Cage (which would see the return of Vin Diesel in the role. Recall Ice Cube took over for the second one – "xXx: State of the Union" – playing Darius Stone/xXx).

Cohen directed the first, while Lee Tahamori directed the second movie in the franchise. And Cohen said that he would indeed return for #3, revealing that he was actually quite far into his plans for the third film, which he said will be shot in 3D. In fact, he said that he’d already shot test footage for the film: “We did all new extreme sports things… I don’t know if you saw my Verizon wingsuit commercial, I had been preparing the climax of ‘xXx 3D’ to be a wingsuit sequence, an actual physical fight in the air at terminal velocity. So that commercial was a warmup.”

A behind-the-scenes look at the making of that commercial is embedded below.

Cohen added that he was waiting for Vin Diesel to get the "Fast & Furious" franchise done, so that he can focus on "xXx" part 3, stating: “I’m just waiting for Vin to get his head out of doing back to back ‘Fasts’ to sit down and really get him to focus on doing ‘xXx 3D’… That’s what I called it because we’re going to shoot it in 3D. I wanted to do an action film in 3D.”

Doesn’t everyone…

But maybe this is actually one film that could lend itself nicely to 3D, given all the extreme action sequences common in the franchise, and which Cohen seems to want raise the ante on: “I would take more chances. I shot some Coca-Cola commercials in 3D and had a lot of fun with the Y axis. It was good.”

And as for who the villain would be in "xXx 3D," Cohen had this to say: “He’s up against a brother and sister, twins who are doing terrible things.”

By the way, he didn’t say whether Samuel L. Jackson would return as bad-ass NSA Agent Augustus Gibbons. But I assume he likely will.

Skip ahead 3+ years later, to a post Diesel shared via his Facebook page this week, in which he shared that Jackson would indeed be returning for the third "xXx" film: "Excited to work with Sam again… his portrayal of Gibbons was so good… timeless," Diesel said – words that were accompanied by a photo of himself and Jackson from the first film.

Filming was set to begin this month in the Philippines, but it doesn’t look like it’s started yet, as casting continues (UFC Featherweight Champion Conor McGregor has reportedly also been offered a role recently).

So it looks like it’s "xXx" and "Fast & Furious" movies for Diesel for the next 5 or so years. Taking a page from other franchises, like what Disney has planned for the "Star Wars" brand, Diesel revealed, about a month ago, that "Fast & Furious" would get at least 1 more trilogy of films, as well as spin-off movies and prequels: “We’ve written out story lines for various characters… We’ve been playing with it for a long time. It’s a very rich property and we’re committed to treating it with a lot of class.” 

Diesel didn’t share specifics, but Dwayne Johnson has hinted in the past that he’d like to see his character star in his own separate movies, so maybe that’s one possibility.

Here’s the making of Cohen’s Verizon commercial: