If Pacific Rim 2 Ever Happens Charlie Day Could Become A Villain
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While Pacific Rim has been done less than stellar box office business in the U.S., many overseas markets have embraced the film with open arms. While it once seemed an impossibility, a big opening in China has reignited talk of a sequel to Guillermo del Toro’s mechs versus monsters epic. We still have to wait a bit to find out if this is enough of a boost to make Pacific Rim a reality, but we can still talk about what could happen. Charlie Day took a few moments to drop a few insights on to what could potentially befall his character, should another film happen.
Day plays manic scientist, and amateur Kaiju enthusiast, Dr. Newton Geiszler. He’s a good guy, if a little obsessed with the massive creatures bent on destroying the world. It’s a distinct possibility that his character could take a turn towards the sinister side of things in the next movie. At least that was one option that was considered along the way.
Talking to Crave Online, Day says:
I remember when I first met with him [del Toro] that he liked the idea of Newt becoming a bit of a villain in the second film…But, I think over the course of making the film, and the way the character resonated with the audience, I don’t think he would want to turn him into a villain now, but I really have no idea.
That’s not a difficult leap to make. Newt is so obsessed with the Kaiju that it is easy to imagine his fixation going wrong and developing into something darker than scientific interest. There are multiple moments in the film when he drifts, or links minds, with various Kaiju brains. The beasts are genetically engineered to have a hive mind, so there could be some lingering piece from these experiences that awaken in his mind. Perhaps they can take control of him from the other dimension, even though the portal has been closed, at least for the time being.
This isn’t the only thing that changed in what sounds like the rather fluid process that led to Pacific Rim. Day continues, “Guillermo is one of these guys that his mind is so active that he might have an idea about something and then it’s a completely different idea five minutes later.”
With this constant change, you could wind up with all sorts of craziness from del Toro’s very fertile imagination. Though it sounds like ideas fly fast and furious, and can take off in another direction at a moment’s notice, Day does have at least one hope for the sequel. He wants to pilot a Jaeger, the skyscraper-tall mech suits that the humans come up with to combat the Kaiju menace. I feel like that’s the new dream of everyone who ever played with action figures, either as a kid or an adult. He says, “I’m hopeful that we get to drive a big punching robot…I think traditionally in those comics, sometimes the science guys put together a cheap, dorky version of one of the robots so maybe we’ll get to do something like that.” It sounds like he has a plan for Newt to team up with his scientific partner, Gottlieb (Burn Gorman), to either fashion a Jaeger of their very own, or at least take one out for a hell of a joyride.
Let’s all hope that worldwide audiences show a little bit more love for Pacific Rim than U.S. viewers. It’s one of the most entertaining movies of the year, and yeah, it could have had more going on, story wise, but at the end of the day, del Toro and company made a movie for every kid who ever smashed one toy into another while making explosion noises with their mouth. This is definitely a ride I want to go on again.
