Pacific Rim Uprising may not have had a huge impact in the United States but the domestic box office has never been the franchise’s biggest contributor. If the sequel slays the box office overseas, we will definitely be seeing a sequel and it seems that director Steven S. DeKnight already has ideas in place for a possible third film.
The sequel follows the son of Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba), played by John Boyega, as he has to train a new class of soldiers for a new breed of Kaiju who have mysteriously returned to Earth. DeKnight sat down with Den of Geek to discuss Pacific Rim Uprising, during which he gave some very interesting insight on how he’s approaching a potential third film in the franchise. DeKnight’s answer stems from a question regarding the symbolism of the Kaiju.
“You know, to me there’s an undercurrent that I wanted to get out there: unfortunately, in the world right now, there seems to be a rampant nationalist, xenophobic fear taking over. That anything different is terrifying and monstrous. So you have these creatures coming from another world, and of course everyone thinks they’re terrible and bad. I won’t go into detail, but I have this interesting idea for the third movie to really blow that up.”
DeKnight also went on to suggest that if he does a third Pacific Rim, he’ll dive into the motivations of the aliens, and they may not be as villainous as we may think.
“And to me, it’s always great if you take what you think is a villain, and really explain why they’re doing what they’re doing. Then it starts to feel more ambiguous. It’s what I loved about the first season of Daredevil we did with Wilson Fisk – a man who’s doing terrible things, but we worked on making the audience understand why he was doing them, and sometimes rooting for him more than Matt Murdock.”
DeKnight also had some words regarding how the final line of the movie will play into the next film. If you’ve seen Pacific Rim: Uprising, you know that at the end of the film it’s implied that John Boyega and the other Jaegers are getting ready to storm the breach and battle the aliens on their own turf. It seems that things may not go as planned for our heroes.
“That would be the easy way to go, but I definitely have some ideas about how to complicate the matter…”
It’s still too early to tell whether or not we’ll be seeing a sequel to Pacific Rim: Uprising but it seems that DeKnight is ready to get started whenever the studio wants him to.
Are you excited for another Pacific Rim? Do you like the sound of DeKnight’s idea? Let us know in the comments below!
Here is the synopsis for Pacific Rim Uprising:
John Boyega (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) stars as the rebellious Jake Pentecost, a once-promising Jaeger pilot whose legendary father gave his life to secure humanity’s victory against the monstrous “Kaiju.” Jake has since abandoned his training only to become caught up in a criminal underworld. But when an even more unstoppable threat is unleashed to tear through our cities and bring the world to its knees, he is given one last chance to live up to his father’s legacy by his estranged sister, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi)—who is leading a brave new generation of pilots that have grown up in the shadow of war. As they seek justice for the fallen, their only hope is to unite together in a global uprising against the forces of extinction.
Jake is joined by gifted rival pilot Lambert (The Fate of the Furious’ Scott Eastwood) and 15-year-old Jaeger hacker Amara (newcomer Cailee Spaeny), as the heroes of the PPDC become the only family he has left. Rising up to become the most powerful defense force to ever walk the earth, they will set course for a spectacular all-new adventure on a towering scale.”
Directed by Steven S. DeKnight, Pacific Rim Uprising stars John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Cailee Spaeny, Charlie Day, Burn Gorman, Rinko Kikuchi, Jing Tian, Adria Arjona, Karan Brar, Ivanna Sakhno, Zhang Jin, Mackenyu, Shyrley Rodriguez, Levi Meaden, Rahart Adams and Zhu Zhu.
Source: Den of Geek
