The idea of a big budget franchise entirely based on giant robots fighting giant monsters sounds like an easy sell, and it’s the sort of concept that on paper has the potential to do massive business at the box office, but that wasn’t the case for the short-lived Pacific Rim.
Guillermo del Toro’s first movie delivered exactly what was promised, but a global haul of $411 million was a solid if unspectacular take, and the $180 million epic was only saved from commercial disaster by a strong showing in China. It still managed to turn a profit, but Universal ended up acquiring the rights to the property from Warner Bros. to develop and distribute sequel Uprising.
However, the second installment failed to even reach $300 million during its theatrical run, and while animated sequel series The Black has been performing well on Netflix, the big screen arm of Pacific Rim looks to be dead in the water. Uprising co-writer and director Steven DeKnight recently revealed that he had tentative plans in place for his intended threequel to cross over with Legendary’s MonsterVerse, though, and del Toro was also firmly behind the idea.
The thought of seeing Godzilla and King Kong squaring off against the Jaegers is a tantalizing prospect, and We Got This Covered recently had the chance to ask Godzilla vs. Kong scribe Max Borenstein if he’d seen DeKnight’s comments. It turns out he had, and admitted that he was more than open to the possibility.
“I saw that. I saw what he said, and I think if he has the vision for it, that would be dope. You know, he’s a really talented storyteller so I would certainly be eager to see it.”
The rights issues would obviously be prohibitive in making it a reality, and the MonsterVerse’s future is very much up in the air following Godzilla vs. Kong, but it’s definitely something the fans would love to see happen no matter how far-fetched it may seem at the moment.