Its relatively little known, but before starring in low testosterone saturated action films,
Vin Diesel was a writer/director whose first film short called
Multi-Facial- an existential portrait of a young multi-racial actor- debuted at Cannes in 1994. Despite receiving little notice in France, a little under three years later,
Mark Sinclair Vincent wrote starred and directed in his first feature, Strays, which wasnt tonally or thematically dissimilar from his short and met with little more success. Since then, of couse, the renamed Vin Diesels story is well known. And after a decade of moderately lucrative action and fantasy films somewhere from fair to awful, the muscle bound star is once again to turn creator with the web series
The Ropes, according to
Variety. Drawing on his own experiences in nightclub security, the eighteen part series will be a co-production between Diesels own One Race Films and Fox Digital. The series is expected to be low budget and authentic- reminiscent of his early forays into writing- and the, as yet unnamed, cast, is likely to comprise the actors friends and acquaintances as well lesser known up and coming actors. No further details have yet been released as Diesel is busy with post-production and promotional work for yet another episode in the Fast and Furious franchise, titled
Fast Five, released through Universal on April 29th. For those interested, here's Vin Diesel's 17 year old short Multi-Facial, broken down into two youtube parts; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBeuyjlbes8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWWh5cX6BX4