As reported a couple days ago, a recent Hollywood Reporter article on the shake-up between Legendary Pictures and Universal included a very doom and gloom outlook on the status of a project the companies have been working on together, the sequel to Guillermo Del Toro's 2013 film PACIFIC RIM. Although PACIFIC RIM 2 had been set to start filming very soon soon for an August 2017 release, THR noted that it has now been
halted indefinitely and will be pushed back (if it gets made at all).
One very important player who has not lost hope in the sequel's chances is Guillermo Del Toro. Discussing the film's delay with Entertainment Weekly, Del Toro said:
"We are still turning in a screenplay and a budget in three weeks. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not gone. We’re still on it."
For him, PACIFIC RIM 2 being pushed back just means that he might make a different movie while waiting for a new start date. It's not likely that other movie will be either of the films Del Toro's fans have long been waiting desperately for, HELLBOY 3 and AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS.
I can't help but feel a bit sorry for Del Toro. He gets the chance to work on some great projects and has a strong fan base, but also faces a lot of trouble getting things into production, often because the scope of his ideas exceed the budgets studios are willing to provide.
Del Toro acknowledged the costliness and riskiness of his dream projects in a joke to EW:
"I can tell you this, if I was a billionaire, I would definitely do Hellboy 3, Pacific Rim 2, and At the Mountains of Madness. And I would quickly become a millionaire."
Del Toro had been working on the Warner Bros./DC Comics project JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK, a script was in place and WB was ready to give it a green light, but he had to vacate the director's chair because of scheduling conflicts with PACIFIC RIM 2. A replacement director for the superhero film has never been announced. Now that Del Toro's schedule is open, might he return to DC's "Dark Universe"? We'll have to wait to find out.
PACIFIC RIM's Rinko Kikuchi