Movies

Guillermo Del Toro Didn't Direct Pacific Rim 2 For One Stupid Reason

Pacific Rim Warner Bros.
By Jeremy Mathai/

You remember "Pacific Rim Uprising," don't you? The 2018 sequel at least had the good sense to continue telling stories in a world begging to become a franchise and also cast John Boyega in a much-deserved leading role, but still managed to squander its potential with a lackluster story, a bizarre and unflattering habit of setting all its major action sequences in broad daylight, and, most egregiously of all, the decision to move forward without director Guillermo del Toro's involvement. This has obviously been a sore spot for the acclaimed, monster-loving filmmaker (though, unfortunately for us all, it's nothing he hasn't gotten used to over the years), but we never quite got to the bottom of why things went down the way they did.

Until now, that is. "Pacific Rim" and its thrilling set pieces just turned 10 years old and, to mark the occasion, del Toro teamed up with Collider to host a special Q&A session after a recent screening of the original movie in glorious IMAX. Among the many, many topics covered, the conversation turned toward his initial efforts to get a sequel off the ground. In the midst of explaining why he didn't end up returning to the director's chair, the director dropped a bombshell that once again proves why truth is always stranger than fiction.

As it turns out, it didn't come down to scheduling issues, creative differences, or any other understandable impasse. Instead, it was a perfect storm of studio laziness and penny-pinching that cost us the chance for del Toro's "Pacific Rim" sequel. A tale as old as time!

Forgetting something?

Pacific Rim Uprising Warner Bros.

Who would've thought that unceremoniously killing off Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) was only the second most unforgivable sin involved with "Pacific Rim Uprising"? Guillermo del Toro has previously talked about the ideas and concepts that he would've implemented had he been in charge of the "Pacific Rim" sequel, but we'll forever be robbed of actually seeing what he could've done had things broken his way. Now, we're finally hearing straight from the maestro's mouth about why that was simply not to be. Apparently, we have nothing else to blame than ... a missed payment to book the necessary sound stages in time. Seriously.

According to del Toro, it really did come down to something as mundane as this:

"We were getting ready to do it, it was different from the first, but it had a continuation of many of the things that I was trying to do. Then what happened is — I mean, this is why life's crazy, right? — they had to give a deposit for the stages at 5pm or we would lose the stages in Toronto for many months. So, I said, 'Don't forget we're gonna lose the stages,' and five o'clock came and went, and we lost the stages. They said, 'Well, we can shoot it in China.' And I go, 'What do you mean we?' [Laughs] 'I've gotta go do 'Shape of Water.'"

Amazing. Infuriating. But, somehow, oh so believable. Things ultimately worked out for the best since del Toro went on to win Best Picture with "The Shape of Water," while the rest of us reached an unspoken agreement to just pretend that 2013's "Pacific Rim" stands by itself. That includes del Toro, who admitted he never watched "Uprising" and never will. Don't worry, Guillermo, we don't blame you one bit.

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