Pacific Rim director Guillermo del Toro was unable to wait out production delays and had to bail on helming the sequel Pacific Rim Uprising, but it’s been revealed that del Toro did stay extensively involved with production on the second film - offering his maestro’s input during the shooting process. An official Pacific Rim Uprising trailer has now been released online too, affording fans their first taste of the “new generation” sequel to the 2013 Jaeger-vs-Kaiju action epic.

After losing Del Toro and star Charlie Hunnam, Pacific Rim Uprising forged ahead with Steven DeKnight behind the camera and John Boyega in the lead role. Set ten years after the Battle of the Breach, Uprising sees a new set of plucky human heroes coming together to battle a new monstrous Kaiju threat. There’s also hip-hop (at least in the trailer).

Speaking to Coming Soon, Pacific Rim Uprising producer Cale Boyter talked about the extent to which Pacific Rim writer/director Guillermo del Toro remained involved in bringing the second movie to the screen:

At one point, del Toro was set to both write and direct the Pacific Rim sequel, but as he explained, production finally was delayed so many times that he could no longer make it work. Writing chores were eventually passed on to Steven DeKnight, T.S. Nowlin, Kira Snyder, and Emily Carmichael. After Charlie Hunnam’s departure left a hole at the top of the cast, Star Wars: The Force Awakens star John Boyega jumped in, giving the enterprise a needed infusion of star power.

“He’s been involved from the different ideas, weighing in, the different drafts. We send him all the visuals and everything. He loves Boyega. Obviously all the stuff he looked at he’s touched and noted. He hasn’t been here yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point he ends up here. Moves things around and I’ll be like ‘No, go back over there.’”

Not that the original Pacific Rim was some kind of cinematic masterpiece, but at least with del Toro at the helm, it did have some humanity and heart to it (though on the surface it may have played like little more than a slightly-smarter Transformers movie). Guillermo del Toro is unique among today’s directors in that he has the storytelling ability necessary to tackle complex, emotional subject-matter, but also possesses the sheer technical skill to mount big-budget spectacle. The result is that del Toro’s films, no matter how big and dumb they may seem, always have a little special something inside them that distinguishes them from your average Hollywood product.

It sounds as though del Toro was able to offer a lot of helpful input to Steven DeKnight and his team as they put together Uprising, which may help put to rest certain fan concerns that the second movie will end up being a lot more Michael Bay and a lot less Guillermo del Toro.

MORE: Pacific Rim Uprising Trailer Breakdown

Source: Coming Soon

  • Pacific Rim: Uprising Release Date: 2018-03-23