10 Movie Deaths Only Explained Outside Of The Films
6. Xander Cage - XXX: The State Of The Union
Universal Pictures UK
Though, yes, Vin Diesel's Xander Cage is the eponymous star of xXx: The Return of Xander Cage, the character didn't feature in the original sequel, called State of the Union. Ice Cube replaced Diesel as the lead, which bombed hard at the box office and failed to resonate with audiences critically either.
The film actually discloses that Diesel's character has died as well, without even showing it. What makes the move so weird is the fact that they did actually film a death sequence for the character, featured on the home release as a bonus 'deleted' scene.
Titled The Final Chapter: The Death of Xander Cage, the short features Diesel's stunt double and reuses archive dialogue featured in the first film. He's 'killed' by Alabama Cobb while in Bora Bora, providing some closure (kind of) on the character's demise.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
