As we’re all well aware by now, Guillermo del Toro is going all in on his PACIFIC RIM franchise, currently working on a sequel (due in 2017) and an animated series. While we’ve got a while to wait, obviously, on PAC RIM 2, the animated series appears to be much closer to becoming a reality.
Speaking with Collider, del Toro mapped out some important details regarding the series.
Regarding where they are in the process right now and what we can expect, character-wise:
We are right now in the middle of talking and negotiating with a few Japanese companies for the animation. We are talking to a couple of showrunners that have a strong animation background, [we’re] casting the writers room. What’s great is it’s a great set-up and a link between the first movie and the second movie. It really enhances the mythology of the characters; we have cameos of characters from the first movie, but mostly it’s a new set of characters. New jaegers, except for one or two, [and] new kaijus. It’s really fun.”
Here del Toro talks about the story a little:
We’re going for a long arc, so the idea is to show a group of characters—we have pilots, functional jaegers, but we have all these younger characters. I really want to explore things that are complimentary to the things that I want to explore in the second movie: drift, what drifting does to you, what is needed to drift, a lot of stuff that I think is important, but also the jaeger technology, the kaijus being evolved, ideas about the precursors—the guys that control the kaijus. We have a lot of leeway in 13 episodes and I wanna make it sort of in the same spirit of Pacific Rim, which is the ideal audience for Pacific Rim was young—very young, 11-year-olds and so forth—but with really beautiful design and stories that make these characters interesting in a way that I found them interesting in, for example, Year Zero, the graphic novel that we did. And I think that’s the basic thrust of the thing.
Del Toro mentions that it will be one long narrative arc, not stand-alone stories every week:
If it connects we’ll go on [to more seasons], but the thing is I don’t want it to be weekly adventures. I don’t want it to be like Chapter One is a little action thing and it gets resolved in 40 minutes or an hour and then the next episode, [it’s like] nothing happened. My favorite anime series always have a long arc.”
Finally, del Toro notes that they have a lot of work to do before they find a home for the animated series.
Legendary is talking to a few outlets so I’d rather not disclose myself. The way we set up The Strain was to talk to everyone, literally, on the map, and then find who’s response we sort of jibe with the most. I think in this series, it would be great to find a place that can give it a proper presentation and can advertise the creation of the series. So we’re open to being pleasantly surprised everywhere.”
Might we hear more about the PACIFIC RIM animated series in a couple of weeks, when a certain nerdy convention rolls into San Diego? We’ll have to wait and see.