Pacific Rim 3 and Expanded Universe Possible

With Pacific Rim: Uprising now out in theaters, director and co-writer Steven S. DeKnight has taken over the franchise from the first movie’s director, Guillermo del Toro (who’s still a producer on this one) and has delivered a new adventure that takes place 10 years after the Earth’s battered defense forces — led by the giant Jaeger robots and their mentally linked pilots — defeated the monstrous kaiju swarming onto our planet from an inter-dimensional rift.

It’s no spoiler to say that the kaiju are coming back in the sequel, and while the new movie has a clear ending (which of course we won’t reveal here), the Pacific Rim universe is wide open for more story possibilities. We spoke with DeKnight recently at the movie’s L.A. press junket and he said that he’s already got an idea for a third entry:

“When I was developing Uprising, I was jotting down a bunch of ideas and notes about a possible third movie. At one point, I think I was in pre-production in Sydney, and I typed them all up and sent them to Legendary (Pictures) to say, ‘Look, this is where I would take it.’ They seemed to like the idea. Hopefully, we’ll get a chance to do a third one, if the audience shows up for this one, and hopefully I’ll be involved.”

Even if he doesn’t return to make a third movie — and as he notes, we can’t assume that there will be one — DeKnight thinks that the potential for Pacific Rim as an ongoing franchise is endless:

“I love the franchise. I think it’s so much fun and there’s so many different ways you could go with it. My idea was always to end the third movie by expanding the universe into a Star Wars/Star Trek style universe, where you could have standalones or you could follow the canon. Just make it big and fun.”

That is what DeKnight and company have aimed to do with the new movie, which stars John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Burn Gorman, Charlie Day, Jing Tian, Rinko Kikuchi and newcomer Cailie Spaeny. As you can see even from the trailers, Pacific Rim: Uprising has a different feel and look from the 2013 original.

Do you think this universe has the potential for even more movies in the future? Let us know in the comments!