By David Wharton | 6 years ago

Dammit if we don’t love an underdog. We spent months slavering over the oncoming release of Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim, and once it was arrived, it was just as much fun as we’d hoped. It was a serious bummer, then, when it under-performed here in the States — to date, it’s only earned $101 million domestic, against a $190 million budget. Thankfully the rest of the world rode to the rescue, driving the global tally up to $411 million. It was still anybody’s guess whether a sequel would ever happen, even as positive and enthusiastic as del Toro remained about the possibility. Well, we shall speak in noncommital language no more: Pacific Rim 2 is real, it’s happening, and it’s hitting theaters on April 7, 2017.

Del Toro broke the news in the short video up top, and it’s been confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter, which also adds that Pacific Rim 2 is being shot for 3D and IMAX — and this is one of those franchises that actually deserves that sort of epic, biggest-screen-possible approach.

Earlier this month del Toro revealed that he was working on a Pacific Rim 2 script with screenwriter Zak Penn (The Incredible Hulk), but since del Toro has been talking about the sequel as a sure thing pretty much all along, even when the disappointing opening weekend totals were rolling in, we weren’t sure how seriously to take the news. I couldn’t be happier that Legendary Pictures and Universal have finally made it official — goodness knows we have to report enough depressing stories around here, it’s nice to have one that makes us unabashedly happy.

As for which cast members will return for Pacific Rim 2, no official deals have been confirmed just yet, but del Toro told BuzzFeed:

The characters I love will return. Raleigh, Mako, Newt, Gottlieb and who knows, maybe even Hannibal Chau — but we are taking them into a fresh territory that will display amazing sights and battles. The first film set the stage and now we’re ready to have a blast.

One fellow that won’t be back for the second outing, however, is Pacific Rim co-writer Travis Beacham, at least not when it comes to working on the script. He’s busy with the upcoming Fox midseason series Hieroglyph, although I would be very surprised if he doesn’t at least have a producer credit on Pacific Rim 2.

And as exciting as the big-screen sequel is, that’s not all del Toro tosses out in his announcement video. He also says there’s an animated series and more comic books on the way. We don’t have any details about them, but we’ll keep you posted when we know more. In the meantime, mark your calendar for April 7, 2017!