Pacific Rim 2 Shooting This Fall, May Be Titled Maelstrom

When Guillermo del Toro’s robots-vs-monsters extravaganza Pacific Rim first hit theaters, its somewhat disappointing grosses stateside seemed to hurt sequel talk, but when international audiences proved more amenable to the effects-heavy pic, Pacific Rim 2 was able to gather just enough steam behind it to get the green light, despite Legendary’s divorce from Warner Bros. and remarriage to Universal complicating matters further.

Now, del Toro is focusing all his efforts on the follow-up, and if a report from Canada’s Global News is to be believed, Pacific Rim 2 is actually shooting this November at Toronto’s Pinewood Studios. The sequel recently made headlines again when it was suggested as the reason del Toro dropped out of Justice League Dark, and news of Pacific Rim 2‘s schedule would suggest that WB and DC Comics had wanted the director to start on that superhero project immediately (not out of the question, given del Toro’s geek cred).

Regardless, Pacific Rim 2 will be the director’s next film after this fall’s Gothic horror Crimson Peak. And according to the same report, del Toro may have already settled on a subtitle: Maelstrom. Of course, the first film went by the production code Still Seas, so this could be a similar tactic – but if Pacific Rim: Maelstrom is indeed the title, I’d welcome that with open arms. It’s certainly a cool tease for the sequel, which del Toro has promised will delve beneath the waves into the home world of the monstrous kaiju.

Pacific Rim 2 will be set years after the original, as the world moves past its fear of kaiju and finds new uses for the fearsome Jaeger technology (an in-the-works animated series is poised to bridge the gap between the two movies). Burn Gorman and Charlie Day’s hapless scientists are said to play a role, and one can also expect that del Toro will find room for Ron Perlman’s Hannibal Chau. Prospects for Charlie Hunnam’s Raleigh Becket and Rinko Kikuchi’s Mako Mori are a bit hazier, though it would be surprising if neither were at least acknowledged in the sequel, given their heroic actions in driving the kaiju back from the brink of victory.

Pacific Rim 2 (Maelstrom?) opens August 4, 2017.