Guillermo Del Toro Confirms Why He Didn’t Direct Pacific Rim 2

Pacific Rim Uprising was a notable sequel that changed up a lot about what fans loved about the movie before it, and Guillermo Del Toro recently confirmed the surprising reason he didn’t direct the sequel. Del Toro first helped to craft Pacific Rim back in 2013, and it really captured fans’ attention with how it depicted fights between massive mechs and Kaiju. But the sequel releasing five years later ended up becoming a much different kind of production, and a large part of that was due to the fact that Del Toro left his directing duties. Recently opening up as to why, it turns out it was due to a surprising misstep. 

Speaking up about not directing the Pacific Rim sequel during a special 10th Anniversary screening of the film with Collider, Del Toro revealed that he ultimately moved on to directing The Shape of Water when the schedules started to change due to losing filming stages in Toronto. And when that happened and filming had to be moved to China, Del Toro explained that it’s when he departed from the sequel project. 

Why Del Toro Didn’t Direct Pacific Rim 2

“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, Del Toro began. “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.’”

Del Toro then explained why he still hasn’t seen the final Pacific Rim Uprising project for himself noting how much changed from his original plans for the sequel, “I didn’t see the final movie because that’s like watching home movies from your ex-wife. It is terrible if they’re good and worse if they’re bad, or the opposite. You don’t wanna know. So, I didn’t see it. I did read the final script, and it was very different. Some of the elements were the same but very different.” 

Would you have wanted to see Guillermo Del Toro’s version of Pacific Rim 2? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animation and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!

HT – Collider