Movies - TV
The Historical Trilogy Vin Diesel Has Wanted To Make Since 2002
By ADAM WESCOTT
While Vin Diesel is known for his roles in the "Fast and Furious" and other action films, his greatest ambition since 2002 is to make a film trilogy about real-life war general Hannibal Barca. Barca led the army of Carthage across the Alps on elephants to crush Rome during the Second Punic War, and three films about him would be quite an undertaking.
Hannibal's story takes place over decades, and for a war trilogy of this magnitude, the special effects team would need to animate thousands of soldiers, as well as believable elephants for each one of them during the iconic charge. Even for a star like Vin Diesel, coordinating this kind of work would be challenging and extremely expensive.
In addition to wanting to play Hannibal, Diesel is a director, and his short film "Multi-Facial" even convinced Steven Spielberg to cast him in "Saving Private Ryan." At one time, Diesel was actually expected to produce an animated series titled “Hannibal the Conqueror,” but this nor any live-action attempts have come to fruition as of 2022.
Diesel also built a "Hannibal tent" in his backyard and is gleaning filmmaking tips from James Cameron during their current work together on the "Avatar" sequel; the star even tracked down real elephants, trained by Chris Gallalucci, in a step forward for his dream role. Only time will tell if Diesel's historical trilogy will hit the silver screen someday.