Last Thursday, we got the big announced that Pacific Rim 2 will hit theaters on April 7, 2017 and that we’re also getting an animated series and a continuation of the Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero prequel graphic novel. Now, director Guillermo del Toro has talked a bit more to the The Wall Street Journal about all three. He says he will start designing ?Pacific Rim 2 with a core team in August, a process that can take anywhere from six to nine months.
He says that “it was hard to create a world that did not come from a comic book, that had its own mythology, so we had to sacrifice many aspects to be able to cram everything in the first movie. Namely, for example ‘the Drift,’ which was an interesting concept. [Then there was] this portal that ripped a hole into the fabric of our universe, what were the tools they were using? And we came up with a really, really interesting idea. I don’t want to spoil it, but I think at the end of the second movie, people will find out that the two movies stand on their own. They’re very different from each other, although hopefully bringing the same joyful giant spectacle. But the tenor of the two movies will be quite different.”
It’s interesting that he mentions both “The Drift” and the portal. Where do you think they could take those in the sequel? As far as the animated series, Del Toro says they “are talking about all the possibilities in terms of networks. We’re formulating ideas that are, again, interesting and not the usual route, but the series tackles the stories that happened to pilots working in the Shatterdome, but also cadets learning how to become pilots. All of this happens prior to the first movie, and it gives you a little more depth into the background of certain characters that will appear in the second movie.”
He also mentions that he was really happy with “Tales from Year Zero” and they are continuing the tales for the next three years. “So by the time the second movie comes out, you will have probably one year of the animation airing, and you will have three years of the comic book series ongoing, so we are trying for all these things to be canon, to be in the same universe, to not wing anything, so that if anyone… a lot of kids, for example, have discovered ‘Pacific Rim’ through the toys. They come in through the toys, and then they watch the movie, and then they learn this, they learn that through the movie or the comic book series, so we’re trying to make it canon so we can expand the universe. And by the time we come into the second movie, you have a good feel for the world, and we can dedicate ourselves to character and ideas and spectacle.”
