Pacific Rim 2 Is Not Greenlit; Is Being Written Anyway

Pacific Rim is out on DVD and Blu-ray this week and that means that a) fans have another chance to pour money into the franchise in desperate hopes of a sequel, and b) that Guillermo del Toro is doing the press rounds.

And just so that fans of the movie who’d like to see more of the universe can keep dreaming fond dreams, we thought they’d like to know that del Toro is working on a script. He told IGN:

To me, what was beautiful and flattering was how people saw the movie not once or twice but three, four times or more. People that love it, love it with great passion. So I would love to continue telling stories about that world…

…we are writing the sequel. Travis Beacham and I are writing, so that is active.

Beacham was the screenwriter of Pacific Rim, just to reassure you that no talent change up has happened. Del Toro added, however, “the decision to green light or not, that’s definitely above my pay rate.” While it made more than it took to make (although there’s some question as to whether it recouped its advertising budget as well as its operating costs), Pacific Rim performed below what is expected of modern blockbusters. The question of whether Legendary Pictures will be interested in a sequel is a real one.

Del Toro and Beacham have dropped hints here and there about the plot threads from Pacific Rim that they’d want to follow up on in a sequel, from a Gipsy Danger 2, to a kaiju/jaeger hybrid, to the full repercussions of a human/kaiju drift. The writing process is a strange one, so there’s no guarantee that any of these elements will survive to a complete script even if the movie does get financed, but it’s interesting from a fan perspective, certainly, to see the bits of the universe that Beacham and del Toro consider to be stones left unturned.

(IGN via First Showing.)