The Pacific Rim 2 news fans of Guillermo del Toro and the Kaiju genre have been waiting for was finally delivered today. A sequel to Pacific Rim has been green lit by Legendary Pictures and new distributor Universal Pictures, and an April 17, 2017 release date has already been locked up for 3D and IMAX 3D presentations.
Guillermo del Toro will once again direct, with Zak Penn (The Incredible Hulk, The Avengers story) set to pen the screenplay.
The original Pacific Rim was produced for nearly $200 million and floundered at the North American box office with only $101.8 million in ticket sales by the time it left cinemas. If domestic ticket sales determined the future of a franchise than Guillermo del Toro’s love letter to the Kaiju genre he grew up with would have been dead and buried after a single film.
In this day and age of worldwide box office business, Pacific Rim reaped the rewards of its international appeal. Foreign ticket sales totaled $309.2 million to bring the worldwide tally to $411 million. Production plus marketing costs likely were in that same range, so the decision to continue the franchise was not made lightly and without some serious number crunching.
The monster success of Legendary’s Godzilla earlier this year likely played a hand in Universal deciding to pursue Pacific Rim 2. Audiences are hungry for epic-scale action and Godzilla proved the returns can be huge. Pacific Rim’s audience likely grew after the Blu-ray and DVD release, so Universal and Legendary expect bigger returns.
Here’s a quick video Guillermo del Toro shot to announce the big Pacific Rim 2 news today as well as an upcoming animated series.
