Happy Valentine’s day to me and the rest of the sadsacks who actually liked Chronicles of Riddick. Universal has announced they’re bringing Vin Diesel’s glassy-eyed alter-ego back in the obviously named sequel Riddick.

As much as Chronicles is slapped around geek circles, the movie went on to make some modest coin, despite it’s $110 million budget. Still, gross receipts aren’t an indicator of quality– they’re an indicator of future profitability. With a rich home market and a popular video game offshoot to back Riddick 3 up, Universal is apparently all in.

And really, I couldn’t be more thrilled. I’m not a huge fan of the uber-anti-hero Riddick character himself, but the world-building periphery around Pitch Black and Chronicles is rich, nerdtastic and very goofy fun. With space ships. And explodin’.

Word is this outing will return to the lean mean focus of Pitch Black and will be penned and directed by genre stalwart and Riddick inventor David Twohy (A Perfect Getaway, Chronicles of Riddick). Shooting could start as early as this year, so long as Diesel can shuffle his way around Universal’s other buff guy tent-pole set to film this year: Fast and the Furious 5.

Either way, this kid is stoked.