Vin Diesel agreed to make a cameo appearance in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) in exchange for the rights to the "Riddick" franchise from Universal Pictures. This allowed him to produce this film independently.
Production on the film was in jeopardy of shutting down when there was a delay in financing. Vin Diesel funded the film himself until the bank loan came through.
(at around 32 mins) When Riddick steps into the identifier for the emergency beacon, the stats on him read: "Richard B. Riddick. Escaped convict. Murderer." This is how he introduced himself to the character of Paris in Pitch Black (2000).
Vin Diesel wanted the movie to be shot on 35mm film, but due to the film's low budget paired with a large number of visual effect shots, the movie had to be shot digitally. As a compromise, David Twohy added a subtle film grain effect throughout the film.
Vin Diesel's original vision was to have The Chronicles of Riddick become like J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth. Pitch Black (2000) was to serve like "The Hobbit," to be a stand alone film to establish the universe, and to have a trilogy of Riddick serving like Lord of the Rings.