Del Toro was then asked about the tone of the sequel, and who we can expect to return:
“Yes. It’s quite a different movie from the first one in that, but I think that two of our main characters like in the first one are Burn and Charlie. They are really, really – I mean, honestly, they are probably the guys I have the most fun writing along with Hannibal Chau so just from a purely selfish drive, I like writing them. I love writing for Charlie and Burn.
I mean, [Burn’s] in Crimson Peak for that reason, because I love working with him. You’re gonna get a lot of that, but the Kaijus are very different and you’re gonna see a very different type of the robots I think. It’s gonna be quite a different adventure.”
A different adventure is a very promising notion. Especially since it would be easy to churn out a recycled version of the first. But, this news suggests that franchise leading man Charlie Hunnam might not come back. His Jaeger pilot, Raleigh Becket, was the focus of the first film’s story, and if there’s a presumably large chunk of the second instalment that’s Kaiju-free, then we can assume he might not be around.
However, given Del Toro’s earlier comments that the film’s gonna be packed with monsters that we can expect to see in their natural habitat, it means that there’s scope for an entirely new stage of Jaeger tech to be unveiled.
Either way, we’ll find out what the director has up his sleeve when Pacific Rim 2 opens on April 7th, 2017.