This Pacific Rim 2 Poster Is A Tease But An Epic One
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We’re a long way off from Pacific Rim 2, like damn near three years away, but that’s not going to stop us from getting excited about the prospect of Guillermo del Toro throwing more giant monsters and more giant robots (don’t worry, we know they’re not really robots, but for the sake of convenience, we refer to them as such with regularity). We’re apparently not the only ones pumped up for this, as there is now a new poster for the sequel that the movie released via its Facebook page. And as if that’s not enough, del Toro has talked about possible start dates for production, as well as future installments beyond just one sequel.
I have to admit, when I first saw this poster I started to giggle a little bit. There’s not much tell you story wise—and hell, there’s nary a kaiju or Jaeger to be found—but it looks epic as all hell, and when a giant hole opens up in the middle of the ocean, you know some crazy shit is about to go down. Something big is coming out of that swirling mass of water, and when it does, be glad you’re not on one of those nearby ships.
Pumping up his new animated feature The Book of Life, which he produced (and I totally dig by the way), he opened up on plans for not just Pacific Rim 2, but also Pacific Rim 3. Not only will there be a Pacific Rim animated series leading up to the first sequel, but that movie, which will be a radical departure from the first (as long as there are still monsters fighting robots, he can do whatever he wants and we’re in), but the second movie is designed to lead into the third.
Del Toro says:
We got the first draft of the movie now, and we are going to spend another 4-5 months on the screenplay before we start pre-production. We start pre-production next year in August-September and start shooting November-December next year.
He goes on to stress again that the next movie will be a very different beast from the first, though you will see some familiar faces, saying:
some of your favorite characters come back, some others don’t because we have decided that we’re going to shoot ambitiously and say ‘Let’s hope we have three movies,’ so some characters come in at the end of the second, hoping that it will ramp up on the third one.
If you’re asking how there can be more Pacific Rim movies when the first one was such a massive flop in the U.S., the answer is simple: international markets saved the day. As much as we love the movie, it’s not particularly subtle, and action translates well into any language (just look at the success of Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age of Extinction overseas). It wound up making $411 million ($300 million outside the U.S.).
You have to give del Toro points for ambition and drive. This is a lot to take on, and he’s always got tons of other projects in various stages of development. Pacific Rim 2 is scheduled to open April 7, 2017, and if it builds into Pacific Rim 3, you have to wonder if it’s going to conclude on a cliffhanger leading into the next movie. Del Toro is optimistic that production will begin sometime later on in 2015.
