Trivia / xXx: State of the Union

• Actor Leaves, Character Dies: Augustus Gibbons calmly acknowledges the news of Xander Cage's death and then nobody mentions him for the rest of the film. This has been retconned now that Vin Diesel reprised his role in XXX Return Of Xander Cage. An alternate opening (included with the DVD as a short film) shows Xander (who is played by a stunt double) being blown up by the film's villain, with a bloody piece of skin showing his trademark "XXX" tattoo as the only thing left. The villain proceeds to insult the departed Mr. Cage and comment on how much of a moron he was, making it seem like a bit of a Take That!.
• B-Team Sequel: Vin Diesel and director Rob Cohen signed on for this film two months before the first film opened. Both ended up leaving the project as Diesel disliked the script, while Cohen worked on Stealth. Cohen remained as an executive producer.
• Box Office Bomb: On a budget of close to $100 million, its total domestic gross ($26 million) was almost half of what the first film made in its opening weekend. Even with its worldwide take, the film failed to come close to recoup its production costs.
• Completely Different Title: In the UK, the subtitle State of the Union was changed to The Next Level for DVD and Blu-ray releases.
• Creator Killer: For director Lee Tamahori, this proved to be the final nail in the coffin after his earlier involvement in the now heavily-maligned Die Another Day.
• Franchise Killer: The film put the franchise on hiatus until the third film came out 12 years later to a better critical and box office performance (and at a different studio, no less).
• Prop Recycling: The stealth tank from this movie was later used to depict Brawl's tank form in Transformers (2007).
• Trend Killer: This film killed the early-mid 2000s trend of fast, modern, teen-oriented action films centered on extreme sports. While The Fast and the Furious film series, which pioneered the trend, is still going strong today, later installments have focused more on straightforward action and car chases as opposed to the earlier, more extreme sports-centered installments.

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