When Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Pacific Rim‘ arrived back in 2013, it struck a chord with audiences. The film’s franchise potential was obvious from the get-go, and while there was initially some question as to whether or not a sequel would materialize (and a few false starts after that once one was greenlit). But here we are, four years later and with less than six months to go before the long awaited release of ‘Pacific Rim: Uprising’.
Of course, any ‘Pacific Rim’ sequel was always going to have some explaining to do. After all, did the first film not famously “cancel the apocalypse?” Well, yes. And make no mistake, that was among the first things director and co-writer Stephen S. DeKnight had to work out when he went to work on the film. As DeKnight explained to CinemaBlend:
“I actually always approached it that they didn’t blow up the entire alien world; it was just the opening of what looked like the monster warehouse. So you also have to assume that creatures who have mastered interdimensional travel have many worlds and have conquered many worlds, and I think that’s referenced in the first one. My thing was, they plugged up one hole, of course they’re still out there and probably pissed off. So that was a very easy natural thing, but did we want the time period to go by a lot longer where it’s the question of “Are they ever coming back?””
Set ten years after the original film, ‘Pacific Rim: Uprising’ sees a new generation of Jaeger pilots rise up to defeat the renewed Kaiju threat as the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.
Directed by Stephen S. DeKnight, ‘Pacific Rim: Uprising’ stars John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Cailee Spaeny, Charlie Day, Burn Gorman, and Rinko Kikuchi. The film is slated to arrive in theaters on March 23, 2018.