We recently received word that not only would a PACIFIC RIM sequel be arriving April 2017, but we’d also get a new animated series and a continuation of the comic book/graphic novel approach (begun around the first film’s release in PACIFIC RIM: YEAR ZERO). And, it seems, a number of other toys are in the works as well. In short: there’s not merely a movie sequel on the way, but substantial and calculated franchise development.
Guillermo del Toro has recently been hinting at what we might expect from a PACIFIC RIM animated show (insinuating that a few of the characters introduced there might spill over into the live action movie sequel); his recent discussion with Collider provides even more illumination.
“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.”
Interesting. Sounding like they’re developing a ‘whole’ universe across multiple platforms, rather than a ‘comic verse,’ a ‘cartoon verse,’ etc. - a smart, but not necessarily taken-for-granted move which oughta lead to a much more well-rounded mythology (rather than the patchwork effect we see in something like, say, DOCTOR WHO or STAR WARS).
Read a bit more from del Toro about upcoming PACIFIC RIM awesomeness HERE.
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Glen Oliver
"Merrick"
