The action of the 2013 film Pacific Rim was clearly too big to contain for one film. It is clear that the war between the monstrous Kaiju and the robotic Jaegers just had to be brought into Pacific Rim 2, and the film has been in a bit of a development hell for the past few years. The film now has an official release date, and this is what is known about the film with its cast and storyline.
According to iDigitalTimes, the sequel to the film is going to have John Boyega, who most fans of Star Wars know as Finn from The Force Awakens. He is going to be coming to Pacific Rim 2 as the son of Idris Elba's character from the first film. Apparently, Boyega's production company, Upper Room Productions, will be helping to finance the film.
It is a relief, too, because Pacific Rim 2 was supposed to show up in 2017, but then Universal pulled it from their schedule, and then halted. This looked to be one of those films that just gets stuck in development hell, but it looks like this is a special pet project for director Guillermo del Toro. By the way, I believe that del Toro wants to make Hellboy 3, and that doesn't look like this will ever get off the ground.
By the way, del Toro will not be directing Pacific Rim 2, but it will be Steven S. DeKnight, who is known for being the showrunner for Daredevil, the Netflix series. However, del Toro will be on as an executive producer, but met with DeKnight and they really synced about this sequel.
So, del Toro won't be back as the director, but what about some of the original cast like Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, and Ron Perlman? They are rumored to return. I would think that they would need to, because...sequel. Granted, it could be anyone fighting these giant monsters in those big armored suits, but it makes sense to get the original cast.
Speaking of return, didn't the first film establish that the portal to another dimension was plugged, so the Kaiju monsters can't return? Yeah, come on, this is a sequel. Surely that portal will open again. You didn't think that the aliens were defeated at the end of the first Independence Day movie, did you? No, we need to have movie franchises, not just stand alone movies.
Just to let you know, Pacific Rim 2 does have an official release date for February 23, 2018. That's pretty early for what looks like a summer blockbuster, but lately we have been seeing blockbuster-style films come earlier in the year.
