That's because Vin Diesel is a gamer and didn't want games starting him to be run-of-the-mill movie tie/cash-ins, so he founded Tigon and tasked them with making good ones.
Pitch Black's planet situation reminded me of Nightfall (Asimov/Silverberg)[0], though there weren't six suns like in the book, and the occurrence of the "night" in the movie seemed to be shorter increments?
Astronomy nerdship aside, I loved Pitch Black. Such a good movie. I haven't watched any of the sequels, though.
The first game that they released, surprisingly for a movie to game adaptation, was also quite good.