It’s no easy task to jump behind the camera and direct a film in a franchise that’s barely found its footing, especially when it’s your feature debut and your predecessor is the now Oscar-winning Guillermo del Toro. But all that pressure doesn’t seem to have fazed Steven S. DeKnight one bit.
Opening this weekend, DeKnight’s directorial debut, Pacific Rim: Uprising, the sequel to del Toro’s 2013 film, isn’t doing terribly well on Rotten Tomatoes currently, nor is it expected to shatter the box office much like Gipsy Danger would dismember a kaiju. However, that hasn’t stopped DeKnight from voicing his excitement when prompted with the proposition of directing a picture in the DC Extended Universe.
Nothing’s set in stone as of yet, of course, but a fan asked DeKnight on Twitter if he would be open to helming a film for the wobbling comic book franchise, to which he replied, and I quote, “Hell Yes!”
While exciting to hear, Steven S. DeKnight doesn’t quite have the big screen experience that DC should desperately be searching for in a director at the moment. Up until this point, he’s primarily been a TV executive. Nonetheless, DeKnight apparently has an eye for large-scale destruction and bombastic action, as seen in the trailers for Pacific Rim: Uprising, and we’d certainly be open to having him step into the franchise.
After all, the DCEU is still in its infant stage when compared to the MCU, which leaves a lot of openings that need to be filled, and fast. And while he might not be at the top of the studio’s list, depending on how DeKnight’s directorial debut performs this weekend, and in the long run for that matter, the Pacific Rim: Uprising helmer could find himself attached to a DCEU project sooner rather than later.
