If there’s one 2018 blockbuster that enjoyed a huge showcase at New York Comic Con, it’s Pacific Rim: Uprising.
Steven S. DeKnight’s super-sized sequel brought the big, big guns thanks to that show-stopping first trailer, one designed to usher in a new generation of Jaeger pilots. Front and center is John Boyega (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) as Jake Pentecost, son of the apocalypse-canceling Stacker, who suits up alongside Scott Eastwood to fend off a whole new wave of Kaiju nasties. And if Friday’s footage is any indication, that resurgence will include a towering monstrosity that’ll surely register as a category six on the PPDC’s (Pan Pacific Defense Corps) official spectrum.
But what of Pacific Rim‘s future beyond 2018? We know that a spinoff cartoon series was once considered under Guillermo del Toro’s supervision, but those plans were quietly shelved when the Mexican filmmaker went about crafting The Shape of Water. There’s been nary a mention of a Pacific Rim spinoff ever since, but it seems all is not lost.
Speaking at New York Comic Con (via Nerdist), Steven S. DeKnight hinted that Uprising could launch the next cinematic franchise replete with additional comics, spinoffs, and that fabled TV show. Not only that, but it seems the creative minds at Legendary have already drawn up a story arc for Pacific Rim 3 which would, in turn, allow the Kaiju/Jaeger war to expand in “many, many different directions.”
I’m certainly hoping so. I think you’ll definitely probably get more comics. The plan was always to use this movie as a launching pad. If enough people show up to this, we’ve already talked about the plot of the third movie, and how the end of the third movie would expand the universe to a Star Wars/Star Trek-style [franchise] where you can go in many, many different directions. You can go main canon, you can go spin-offs, you can go one-offs. Yeah, that’s the plan. And I would love to see an animated TV show based on this.
Originally titled Maelstrom and angled for a release in February, Pacific Rim: Uprising will lumber into theaters on March 23rd, 2018.
