Guillermo Del Toro Still At Work On PACIFIC RIM 2

Director Guillermo del Toro was already working on a sequel to last summer’s Pacific Rim even before the film opened. And now, in the wake of it pulling in $407 million at the worldwide box office, it looks like he’ll be getting his chance to tell more stories about giant monsters invading from another dimension and the men and women who climb into giant robotic mecha called jaegers to fight them. But the studio hasn’t given a greenlight to a sequel yet, but Del Toro seems confident that it will happen.

Speaking with Rolling Stone, the director stated that he was currently working on the screenplay for Pacific Rim 2 with the first film’s original writer at the behest of co-producers Legendary and Warner Brothers, but that’s just the first step before getting the official go-ahead for the project.

Legendary gave me the absolute go-ahead with writing the screenplay, so Travis Beacham and I are working on it. As far as giving it a green light, that’s the big step of the process. We need to put together a budget and then they’ll make that decision, but everybody is unwavering in their love for the movie.

Previously, Del Toro hinted that a second film may focus on the invading kaiju using some of the Earth technology that was left behind in their dimension during the finale of the first film. He also stated that “the Drift,” the psychic connection between the two operators of the giant jaegers which was also briefly established between a scientist and a portion of a kaiju brain, will also play an important part on what may come.

Granted the first film’s budget of $190 million seemed like a risky proposition at the time and even with the worldwide gross factored in, it barely turned a profit for all involved. I would imagine, though, that a potential sequel would conceivably have a lower budget, if only because some of the development costs for the visual effects were already absorbed by the first film.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Pacific Rim‘s final DVD/ blu-ray sales over the next few months into the holidays factor into Warners’ final decision as to whether to go ahead with a sequel or not.