Expanded ‘Pacific Rim’ Universe May Be Coming Soon, Says ‘Uprising’ Director
Strap into your jaegers: we may be getting a whole lot morePacific Rimcontent if the director of the upcoming sequel has anything to say about it. At New York Comic Con, filmmakerSteven S. DeKnight– who inherited the director’s chair from Guillermo del Toro – referred to the “Pacific Rimfranchise,” and in a new interview, he explained the plan to expand this robots vs. kaiju franchise into something comparable toStar WarsandStar Trek.
Nerdistcaught up with DeKnight at New York Comic Con and asked him if his use of the word “franchise” during the panel means that aPacific Rimuniverse – in the form of more movies, comics, and entertainment in other media – is in the cards:
While fans may be excited about the potential for morePacRimstories in various forms, it’s important to remember that the key phrase in DeKnight’s response is, “If enough people show up to this”. The firstPacific Rimbarely cleared $100 million domestically in its theatrical run, and it was the international reception that ultimately justified a sequel. But while studios used to be able to just dump sequels into theaters and bank on international audiences to eat them up because of name recognition and big CG spectacle, this summer may be something of a turning point in that regard: movies likePirates 5andTransformers 5didn’t perform nearly as well as anticipated, and withUprising’siffy trailerthat doesn’t seem to capture the del Toro-led uniqueness of the 2013 original, this sequel’s success is far from a sure thing.
We’ve already seenPacific Rimcomicsanda fan-made anime, but there actually were plans in place for an official animatedPacific Rimcartoon series a few years ago under del Toro’s supervision, but it ended up being put on hold. The filmmaker is still hopeful that he’ll be able to make it one day, but just like with the rest of this content, you have to assume its future is closely tied with the success or failure ofUprising.
You canread our full recap of the NYCCPacific Rim Uprisingpanel right here.Uprisingarrives in theaters onFebruary 23, 2018.
