For the longest time, it looked certain that Pacific Rim would be remembered as a super-sized flash in the pan.
Guillermo del Toro’s larger-than-life blockbuster struggled to pull in enough box office receipts four years ago, leaving the future of the monsterverse in jeopardy. As time wore on, and the franchise was handed a lifeline in the form of Legendary’s Chinese buyout, Pacific Rim 2 was suddenly back on the table.
One name change and two release dates later and we now stand on the verge of Pacific Rim: Uprising, Steven S. DeKnight’s (Daredevil) gigantic sequel told through the lens of Jake Pentecost, a rebellious Jaeger pilot portrayed by John Boyega of Star Wars fame. If that name rings a bell, it should; he’s the son of Stacker Pentecost, Idris Elba’s booming leader who effectively cancelled an apocalypse in 2013. Now, the Kaiju are ready to stage their resurgence, and ahead of tomorrow’s first trailer, EW has debuted four brand new photos.
Explaining who his character is, Boyega told the magazine the following:
“Jake is the prodigal son. He is a young guy who was on the cusp of greatness in his early days when he was training to be a Jaeger pilot, but he always had a troubled relationship with Stacker. I’m the son he didn’t really talk about in the first film … the product of Stacker’s first love.”
Also on board for the sequel is Scott Eastwood, who plays Jake’s friend Lambert. Speaking about their relationship, Boyega said:
“They were brothers, but that bond broke when Jake ran away. Being in each other’s heads in The Drift, they know each other’s thoughts, so they have great moments of hashing out what happened in the past.”
Finally, the actor touched on the new threat that will be present in the larger than life film.
“The Kaiju have found a new way. They are way more intelligent than we thought they were. The monsters you saw in the first movie were the test run, to see how the planet would hold up. The breach we thought was closed is not their only way into our world. Their plans are more specific. Jake leads the team in trying to build up a new defense against that.”
The Kaiju are mounting their resurgence, then, which only means that there’s another apocalypse looming over the horizon. Pacific Rim: Uprising has been scheduled for release on March 23rd, 2018 – one month after its initial due date. Other films penciled in for the same window include Marvel’s Black Panther, the untitled Cloverfield 3 and, crucially, not Shane Black’s reboot of The Predator, which recently uprooted for a late summer corridor.
