"Pacific Rim 2" is definitely moving forward!
Despite the slow progress, Guillermo del Toro has assured fans that the mecha-themed Kaiju movie sequel is in development.
However, despite the sequel's progress there have been reports claiming that the film will no longer tell the story of Raleigh played by "Sons of Anarchy" star Charlie Hunnam.
"We are taking the characters into a completely different journey this time because Raleigh (played by Hunnam) for me solved his problem the minute he was able to go full circle and save Mako by sacrificing himself, which is what he couldn't do with his brother. He's not on that journey anymore, he's on a new journey," Guillermo del Toro said via IB Times.
Del Toro further explained that "Pacific Rim 2" is set to take on a different path than that of the original film, thus speculations about Hunnam's exit arise.
"It's a few years after the first one," del Toro said according to IB Times. "It is the world having been freed of Kaiju, what happens to the world after -- what happens to the Jaeger technology once the Kaiju are not a threat. It's quite a jump."
The award-winning director also had a chance to discuss the movie's progress in an interview with BuzzFeed as he promoted the premiere episode for "The Strain."
"I'm working very, very hard with Zak Penn," he explained of "Pacific Rim 2" progress. "We've been working for a few months now in secret. We found a way to twist it around. Travis Beacham was involved in the storyline and now I'm writing with Zak because Travis has become a TV mogul."
As he managed not to spoil anything, del Toro told Collider of the film's development.
"We are three years away, so to spoil anything would be fantastically silly of me," del Toro said. "What I can tell you: [screenwriter Zak Penn] and I really went in, we started with [screenwriter Travis Beacham] about a year and a half ago, kicking ideas back and forth. And, admittedly, I said to Zak, let's keep kicking ideas till we find one that really, really turns the first movie on its ear, so to speak."
And while he admitted that he is actually having a hard time working on the sequel due to the story's lack of background.
"It was hard to create a world that did not come from a comic book," he explained.
"That had its own mythology, so we had to sacrifice many aspects to be able to cram everything in the first movie. Namely, for example 'the Drift,' this was an interesting concept. [Then there was] this portal that ripped a hole into the fabric of our universe, what were the tools they were using? And we came up with a really, really interesting idea. I don't want to spoil it, but I think at the end of the second movie, people will find out that the two movies stand on their own. They're very different from each other, although hopefully bringing the same joyful giant spectacle. But the tenor of the two movies will be quite different."
