‘Pacific Rim 2’ Will Be Set Years After Original

For a sequel that’s not set to launch in multiplexes for another two-and-a-half years, talk surrounding Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim 2 continues to stir up intrigue. Despite the success of the first outing, it took a while for Legendary to greenlight the follow-up. As soon as that deadbolt sailed home, though, the blogosphere went berserk.

In every interview the director has given since, he’ll always slip in a little tidbit about the sequel. Is it to keep fans in the loop, or drive them crackers with anticipation? It doesn’t really matter, especially as today, Collider has dropped a bunch of new information about the film’s storyline.

From what we already know, the sequel is slated to pick up after an unknown amount of time has passed following the events of Pacific Rim. With an animated series in the pipeline that’s said to bridge the gap between the two pics, it’s no surprise that that chunk may be considerable:

“It’s a few years after the first one. It’s not an immediate follow-up. It is the world having been freed of Kaiju, what happens to the world after – what happens to the Jaeger technology once the Kaiju are not a threat. It’s quite a jump.”

Del Toro was then asked about the tone of the sequel, and who we can expect to return:

“Yes. It’s quite a different movie from the first one in that, but I think that two of our main characters like in the first one are Burn and Charlie. They are really, really – I mean, honestly, they are probably the guys I have the most fun writing along with Hannibal Chau so just from a purely selfish drive, I like writing them. I love writing for Charlie and Burn.

I mean, [Burn’s] in Crimson Peak for that reason, because I love working with him. You’re gonna get a lot of that, but the Kaijus are very different and you’re gonna see a very different type of the robots I think. It’s gonna be quite a different adventure.”

A different adventure is a very promising notion. Especially since it would be easy to churn out a recycled version of the first. But, this news suggests that franchise leading man Charlie Hunnam might not come back. His Jaeger pilot, Raleigh Becket, was the focus of the first film’s story, and if there’s a presumably large chunk of the second instalment that’s Kaiju-free, then we can assume he might not be around.

However, given Del Toro’s earlier comments that the film’s gonna be packed with monsters that we can expect to see in their natural habitat, it means that there’s scope for an entirely new stage of Jaeger tech to be unveiled.

Either way, we’ll find out what the director has up his sleeve when Pacific Rim 2 opens on April 7th, 2017.