With reporting by Josh Horowitz

There are a whole lot of balls still in the air when it comes to the film adaptation of Marvel's "Inhumans." The Phase Three film is set to hit theaters on July 12, 2019 -- four months after the similarly mysterious "Captain Marvel," and two months after the final "Avengers" installment, "Infinity War -- Part 2" -- but with no director, writer, or cast to speak of, the project is still as cloaked in secrecy as Thanos' plan to take over the universe.

However, one aspect of "Inhumans" that's no secret at all is Vin Diesel's interest in the project. He's been talking about it since 2014, and he literally even "auditioned" for Black Bolt to IGN just last week -- but no deals have been signed. So what gives?

MTV News' Josh Horowitz asked Diesel if this was all an "if it happens, it happens" type of deal when Diesel was in town to promote "The Last Witch Hunter" for the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast, and the "Fast and Furious" star said that it all comes back to Groot.

"I don't do too much 'if it happens,'" Diesel explained. "Do you know what I mean?... I don't do too much 'if it happens,' it's more at what level it will happen... it's not a matter of me wooing Marvel, it's a matter of Marvel wooing me. And I love them, but I'm just saying, show me a dope script and show me a great director, all of which I know that Kevin [Feige] is capable of, because he dazzled me when he suggested Groot. That was, like, profound to me.

"Of course he was playing off of 'The Iron Giant,' so it did feel like a natural next step for that, and a way to service 'The Iron Giant' in a kind of new form," Diesel continued. "It couldn't have gone better; I thought it was genius. I'm not doing anything just for work. I'm doing things that I can feel passionate about, and that I feel like I can contribute to."

So the TL; DR update is: reply hazy, try again once Marvel has a director and/or a script.