Pitch Black (titled The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black on later re-releases) is a 2000 American science fiction action horror film[5][6] directed by David Twohy and co-written by Twohy and brothers Ken and Jim Wheat from a story conceived by the latter.

The film stars Vin Diesel, Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser, Claudia Black and Keith David.

Dangerous criminal Riddick (Diesel) is being transported to prison in a spacecraft, and escapes when the spaceship is damaged by comet debris and crash lands on an empty desert planet.

Pitch Black was released on February 18, 2000, by USA Films and received mixed reviews from critics, who praised some inventive elements, the film's visual style, and Diesel's performance, but criticized a failure to fully expand on the core premise and some cliched characterizations.

A sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick, was released in 2004 by Universal, with Diesel back as the title character and Twohy returning as writer and director.

They find an abandoned geological research settlement, with a water well and a dropship that lacks power to fly.

The group returns to the crash site on a solar-powered sand truck to salvage more power cells for the dropship before the eclipse, but it begins as they get there.

According to Ken and Jim Wheat, the original concept of Pitch Black was suggested by David Madden during his tenure in Interscope Communications.

His initial premise was: "[t]ravelers visit a planet where multiple suns mean perpetual daylight, but when an eclipse brings darkness, ghosts emerge."

Twohy had worked on an early version of Alien 3, and was aware that Pitch Black's concept had similarities to that franchise.

In Los Angeles, New Deal Studios were used for miniature photography and the interior sequence of the spaceship crash.

The site's consensus reads: "Despite an interesting premise (and a starmaking turn from Vin Diesel), Pitch Black is too derivative and formulaic to fully recommend to sci-fi or action fans".

James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and stated, "It's not an especially challenging part, but Diesel handles it with aplomb.

"[17] Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2 out of 4 stars, stating Pitch Black was inferior to Twohy's The Arrival (1996) and adding: "how sad it is that humans travel countless light years away from Earth, only to find themselves inhabiting the same tired generic conventions.

[21] In 2020, the year of the film’s 20th Anniversary, Arrow Video released Pitch Black on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray.

To tie in with the sequel, the film was novelized under the name The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black, which was written by Frank Lauria.

A short animated movie released the same year, The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury (2004), was directed by Peter Chung.

[24] The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, a game for the Xbox and the PC, was released in 2004 to critical acclaim.