Guillermo del Toro has long been the contemporary king of the creature feature on both a big-budget and indie scale, beginning with his breakthrough 1992 Mexican horror filmCronosbefore working his way up to the blockbuster stage with 2004’s comic adaptationHellboy. Del Toro always manages to infuse a sense of his own personality in his work despite the high-concept elements his films have, with his biggest challenge in doing so having been his epic 2013 epic monster moviePacific Rim.
In a mind full of fascinating and complex ideas,Pacific Rimproved to be one of del Toro’s most simple. In a world where humanity has built giant war mechas called Jaegers to fight giant interdimensional monsters called Kaiju, a burned out Jaeger pilot named Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) is called out retirement by his former commanding officer Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) to show the ropes to an up-and-coming rookie Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) as the Kaiju inch closer to domination. It is thoroughly generic film that is elevated by del Toro’s detailed craft, particularly the unique way in which the Jaegers are operated through a compatibility function between its pilots called Drifting.
Why Did Guillermo del Toro Pass on Directing ‘Pacific Rim: Uprising’?
After the moderate success ofPacific Rim, del Toro announced that he would return to direct a sequel with a script that he had been co-writing with Zak Penn (Ready Player One). Then, everything changed when Legendary Pictures, the production company on the first film, was sold to a Chinese conglomerate for a massive $3.5 billion price tag since the majority ofPacific Rim’sbox office success came from China. Del Toro later stated thatSteven S. DeKnight (TV’sDaredevil)would take over directing duties in his film debut while he would remain on the project as a producer with not much context as to why this was happening.
Appearing at Collider’s 10th-anniversary screening ofPacific Rim, del Toro had this to say on the subject ofUprisingduring an exclusive interview:
“We were getting ready to do it, it was different from the first, but it had a continuation of many of the things that I was trying to do. Then what happened is—I mean, this is why life’s crazy, right?—they had to give a deposit for the stages at 5pm or we would lose the stages in Toronto for many months. So, I said, “Don’t forget we’re gonna lose the stages,” and five o’clock came and went, and we lost the stages. They said, “Well, we can shoot it in China.” And I go, “What do you mean we?” [Laughs] “I’ve gotta go do Shape of Water.”
It was clear that del Toro always wanted to come back for the follow-up to his cherished passion project when he mentioned that he was working through his thoughts for a sequel even before he had finished the first film. Apparently, he was on board to direct up to the last minute until studio negligence ended up pushing him away. While Legendary remained as the primary producer, distribution switched from Warner Bros. over to Universal, leading to some sort of disconnect. Del Toro went on produce aPacific Rimanime series for Netflixbut it seems that his unfortunate experience in trying to get his sequel made has turned him away from stepping back into a Jaeger cockpit anytime soon.
What is Pacific Rim: Uprising About?
Picking up ten years after the events of its predecessor,Uprisingfollows Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), a black-market salesman of decommissioned Jaeger parts who lives in the shadow of his father Stacker’s heroic sacrifice in the first film of closing the portal been the world of the Kaiju and Earth. He is also the adoptive younger brother of Mako, now serving as secretary general of the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps. Much like Raleigh, Jake is given a chance at redemption when a group of Kaiju-Jaeger hybrids open multiple breaches across the Pacific Rim andunleash a new wave of Kaiju.
Del Toro’s involvement as a producer was obviously minimal based on the way he spoke about the project as it was in development and production between 2016 and 2017, but his latest comments from the Q&A provide a more intriguing explanation:
“I didn’t see the final movie because that’s like watching home movies from your ex-wife. It is terrible if they’re good and worse if they’re bad, or the opposite. You don’t wanna know. So, I didn’t see it. I did read the final script, and it was very different. Some of the elements were the same but very different.”
These are the words of a man who deeply cared about his light-hearted robots-fighting-monsters extravaganza and could not stomach the notion what his carefully constructed cinematic universe would look like without him at the helm. The result was one that was equally generic as the original yet lacked its creativity, with the only thing to take away from it being the performance ofCailee Spaeny, a rising young actresswho is currently in awards discussions for her work in Sofia Coppola’s upcomingPriscilla.
Will ‘Pacific Rim 3’ Ever Exist?
Five months before the release ofUprising, DeKnight stated that he and his writers' room had brainstormed a multitude of potential directions to take the franchise including Godzilla and King Kong crossover as both IPs are owned by Legendary. Del Toro playfully entertained the idea under the explicit disclaimer that he has no plans to direct, stating:
“I personally love seeing the neon, sea battles, building demolition, etc because secretly -maybe- the PAC RIM Universe co-exists in the LEGENDARY Kaijuverse and, perhaps, one day they can rumble!”
While he is no longer the creative force behind thePacific Rimuniverse the way he once was, Del Toro’s enthusiasm for the films continues to keep alive the possibility that another film could ostensibly exist at some point, the only question is who the auteur would like to carry his legacy.
