10 Major Movie Franchise Reveals Found In Spin-Offs
8. The Death Of Xander Cage - XXX: State Of The Union
Vin Diesel wasn’t interested in making a XXX sequel back in the day, so Ice Cube took the lead for State Of The Union, which casually revealed Xander Cage was killed in an off-screen mission. Maybe the producers were feeling a little bitter about Diesel abandoning a promising series, since they commissioned a short for the DVD actually showing Cage's death.
Cage is played by Diesel’s stunt double here, whose face is never seen and his only line is audio badly ripped from the original. Cage is tricked by assassins into a building lined with explosives, but the story is a little weird since he was going into the building anyway. Eventually it blows up, sending his distinctive fur coat and the skin from the back of his head – complete with XXX tattoo – splattering across the street.
A henchman from State Of The Union turns up and makes a gag about his death, and that’s that. It’s a rather poor short in fairness, but with Cage’s resurrection for the next movie it’ll be interesting to see if they even address this.