The director of a cult fantasy wisely ignored the franchise-killing sequel
A $180 million blockbuster about giant robots fighting giant monsters, coming from the mind of one of cinema’s best-known and most celebrated purveyors of the fantastic, sounds like a license to print money, but Pacific Rim Only thanks to a strong performance in China, which contributed over 25 percent of the film’s total revenue of $411 million, was the box office disaster avoided.
Nonetheless, profit margins were apparently strong enough to greenlight a sequel, with the notable caveat of Guillermo del Toro The director’s chair was vacated in favor of Steven S. DeKnight, while Warner Bros. handed over the distribution rights to Universal.
As it turned out, the reasons for del Toro’s departure could have been easily clarified, but the filmmaker admitted it Collider that he had other things to do, which worked out pretty well considering he ended up winning two Oscars for the project he wanted to do instead.
“We prepared for it, it was different to the first but it was a continuation of a lot of things I had tried. What happened next is – I mean, this is why life is crazy, right? – They had to pay a deposit for the stages at 5 p.m. otherwise we would lose the stages in Toronto for many months. So I said, “Don’t forget we’re going to lose the stages,” and 5 o’clock came and went and we lost the stages. They said, “Well, we can shoot it in China.” And I say, “What do you mean we?” I have to go form of water.”
Furthermore, the filmmaker admitted that he still hasn’t seen it Pacific Rim: Uprisingusing an analogy that makes complete sense why he had no interest in trying out the sequel to a fantasy epic he created from the ground up.
“I haven’t seen the last movie because it’s like watching home movies of your ex-wife. It’s terrible when they’re good and worse when they’re bad, or vice versa. You don’t want to know. Well, I haven’t seen it. I read the final script and it was completely different. Some of the elements were the same but very different.”
The franchise is all but dead on the live-action front, but Netflix kept the brand alive through animated series The black onewhich managed to release two seasons last year before coming to an end.
