7 Reasons Why Universal Should Un-Cancel Pacific Rim 2

After Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim failed to set the box office alight as original studio Warner Bros. expected, prospects of a sequel appeared uncertain. It was only after the film had been released in Asia, and done solid business with the Chinese market, that new studio Universal decided to greenlight Pacific Rim 2. Still, that Pacific Rim made just $411 million (with barely $100 million of that coming from the US) on a $190 million budget meant Pacific Rim 2 was always more of a gamble than a sure bet. So, it wasn't hugely surprising that, with pre-production in full swing and the prospective shoot date coming ever closer, Universal decided to halt the film "indefinitely." It was unsurprising, but still hugely disappointing. And that's not just because this was the second time a major studio had pulled the plug on a Guillermo del Toro project just as it was about to roll; if Universal does get things moving on Pacific Rim 2 again (del Toro and Universal insist the film will still move forward, but at this point the film is bumped off the release calendar and nothing is certain), there are several reasons to believe the studio would have something promising on their hands. Here, then, are seven reasons why they should un-cancel production on Pacific Rim 2 sooner rather than later. 7) It Would Be A Waste Of A Concept Not To Go Back We unavoidably live in an age where blockbusters are made to set up franchises. It's an admittedly cynical way of doing business, and is especially so when so many prospective franchise beginners arrive half-baked or bereft of ideas. Think this year's Terminator Genisys, which was effectively a rehash of Terminator movies previous, and had only two things on its mind: making money, and starting the franchise over so sequels could follow. Pacific Rim, on the other hand, was very different. Pacific Rim came fully-formed, packed with invention and some of the best design work seen in blockbuster cinema in years. It had a concept most western viewers weren't familiar with, and took inspiration from old monster movies, then did its monster vs. giant robot thing on a scale that no filmmaker had been able to before. The Pacific Rim franchise may be a bit of a Frankenstein, but del Toro has taken existing elements and made them feel so fresh that they appear brand new. Failing to make another go-around would, frankly, be a waste of the Pacific Rim universe's obvious potential. 6) del Toro's Designs Are Second-To-None Pacific Rim is not a perfect movie. The characters can be two-dimensional, a couple of the action scenes are unnecessarily dark, and the dialogue - though peppered with one-liner brilliance like, "today we are canceling the apocalypse" - could do with some added dynamism. These are all things a sequel could improve upon, of course; one aspect of Pacific Rim that needs no improvements, however, is del Toro's design work. Always aesthetically ambitious, del Toro reaches for the sky in Pacific Rim, and the result is the filmmaker showing what he can do at the peak of his powers. For the skyscraper-tall Jaegers, the director opted for a sleek, Gundam Wing-style mecha design. For the alien Kaiju, del Toro borrowed from disparate sources like Lovecraft and Goya to create unique-looking, neon-colored beasts with angular, weapon-like heads. The world design itself is no less impressive: a kind of brightly-colored, more hopeful Blade Runner with a splash of present-day familiarity. Pacific Rim looks immaculate, with the franchise clearly bringing out the best in del Toro. Who wouldn't want to see more of the same in a sequel? 5) del Toro Is One Of Very Few Auteurs Who Can Bring His Vision To Blockbusters You probably can't list all that many contemporary 'name' auteurs who happen to also work the blockbuster scene. Christopher Nolan is one, of course, while J.J. Abrams is arguably another (you also have the older generation types like Spielberg and Ridley Scott, though both now drift in and out of big projects and smaller-scale productions). For the most part, though, true auteurs don't deal in big budget popcorn cinema; it's largely indistinct types like Colin Trevorrow, Jon Favreau or Alan Taylor handling your blockbuster movies nowadays. Thankfully, we also have Guillermo del Toro calling the shots on big screen, big budget entertainment, the Mexican helmer being one of the few blockbuster filmmakers out there who manages to put his gleefully gothic stamp on everything he does. It's why Pacific Rim was such a cause for celebration when it was released two years ago, and why the current hiatus of Pacific Rim 2 has hardcore fans up in arms. With a del Toro blockbuster, audiences know what they're getting - a mixture of great style and high entertainment, albeit done in a personal way. 4) The Sequel Is Set To Explore The Kaiju Homeworld One of the more intriguing aspects of Pacific Rim concerned what laid in wait beyond the Breach, the portal connecting the Earth to the unknown other side. At the other end was the land of the Kaiju, the mysterious Anteverse that was home for both the monsters and the brilliant alien minds that created them. Glimpsed only briefly in the film, the Anteverse was del Toro going full-on Lovecraftian, with a vision of incomprehensible horror, a fiery, lightning-struck world containing (among other things) a grim Kaiju production line. It is, understandably, a vision that del Toro wants to return to and explore in earnest for Pacific Rim 2. According to screenwriter Zak Penn, the sequel will expand the Pacific Rim universe and explore the "Kaiju and their origins," with which will inevitably come another (likely more detailed) look at the Kaiju homeworld. It's a place that's ripe for exploration in a sequel, and will doubtless provide del Toro an opportunity to scratch his Lovecraft itch until his own Mountains of Madness finally gets made. 3) It Will Feature A Kaiju Jaeger Hybrid OK, so Pacific Rim wasn't the most complicated of films. Even in blockbuster terms, 'monsters fighting robots' is just about the single most simple concept you're going to find at the movies. With that said, Pacific Rim did have the wow factor and a certain element of retro cool going for it - the film was, effectively, a recreation of childhood playtime on a grand scale, with the chief pleasure of the movie being that it featured ridiculous monsters getting destroyed by awesome humananoid giants with rockets in their arms. For the sequel, del Toro is apparently planning to up that wow factor. In an interview given back in 2013, del Toro said that "you're going to see a merging of Kaiju and Jaeger" in Pacific Rim 2 (that'd be a consequence of Gipsy Danger "going to the other side" and leaving wreckage behind in the Kaiju homeland at the end of Pacific Rim). The result could be something even cooler than the proposed Pacific Rim/Godzilla crossover del Toro reportedly wants to happen - expect del Toro and his design team to have gone into overdrive for it. 2) The Cast Is Still Great (And There's A Neat New Prospective Addition) One thing that clearly doesn't need changing from Pacific Rim for the sequel is the cast, an eclectic global collective of character actors that del Toro seems more than happy to use again. The director has already spoken of writing for "Newt and Gottlieb and Herc and Raleigh" in his Pacific Rim 2 script, meaning Charlie Day, Burn Gorman, Max Martini and Charlie Hunnam will all return. It's also said that Rinko Kikuchi will again be part of the team as Mako Mori, while Ron Perlman has said "the odds are good" of audiences seeing Hannibal Chau again. Unfortunately, the film may have lost Idris Elba (that's unconfirmed, though considering Stacker Pentecost nuked himself to death in the first film, it's unlikely Elba will be back), but it does have one new neat cast addition: Maisie Williams. Yes, Game of Thrones' own Arya Stark is being lined up by del Toro to play a brand new Jaeger pilot if his follow-up goes ahead. Expect more interesting casting decisions to follow, if the money comes through. 1) It Would Still Make Money If the fundamental issue Universal has about Pacific Rim 2 is regarding money, the suits needn't worry. Pacific Rim may have under-performed stateside, but in the grand scheme of things that isn't quite so important anymore, not when there's a new box office power all the way across the Pacific. It was China that recently took Furious 7 and Transformers: Age of Extinction past the billion dollar mark, and China that saved Pacific Rim from being a box office bomb (the film was, in 2013, actually the sixth-highest grossing film ever in the country). Since Pacific Rim, the Chinese market has only become more important and more crucial for a film's financial chances. With the Pacific Rim brand already established there, and with the movie having found further popularity elsewhere on home video, the sequel would almost certainly break even at the least, but more likely make a profit (the general rule of thumb these days is that the sequel out-performs the original). Pacific Rim 2 may be considered a gamble, but when creatively and financially the film is near-guaranteed to be a hit, Universal has virtually nothing to lose.