Legendary have announced new titles for two of their biggest forthcoming movies today, and without the spotlighted fanfare we’re so used to. Pacific Rim 2 will now be called Pacific Rim: Uprising (recently re-titled from Pacific Rim: Maelstrom) and the new Godzilla film will be subtitled King of Monsters.
Bold titles, full of intent. Let’s hope they make the most of their potential.
We spoke to Del Toro on the press tour for Crimson Peak, and spoke about his feelings on the Pacific Rim sequel at that time.
Always keen to do a follow up Guillermo del Toro and his series co-creator Travis Beacham look set to be on board in producer roles for the sequel. Production on Pacific Rim 2 is set to begin later this year across the world, notably in China where a very strong showing allowed the $101 million haul in North America to grow significantly to a $411 million total worldwide.
Star Wars’ own new boy John Boyega will play the son of Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba’s character from the first instalment). Steven S. DeKnight (Daredevil) is taking on the directing duties from Del Toro and the script is by Jurassic World co-writer Derek Connolly.
Also announced in the seemingly innocuous press release is the new subtitle for Legendary’s forthcoming Godzilla movie. King of Monsters will be how Godzilla is welcomed back into cinemas in March of 2019. The film is moving forward quickly having recently lost director Gareth Edwards, who must currently be basking in the glow of the positive reviews for his Star Wars movie, Rogue One.
The title is an interesting one. We know that there’s a crossover Movie Monster Mash-up coming with Godzilla and King Kong coming so the whole notion of who really ends up as King of the Monsters is being set up already. Sadly it’s not a movie adaptation of the SNES forgotten gem…
Godzilla: King of Monsters is directed by Krampus’s Michael Dougherty and it will be very interesting to see how much the film carries over in terms of scope and tone from Edwards’ 2014 film. There is no news yet as to the actors or other talent assigned to the project, but we’ll keep you updated.
