Pacific Rim Might Become A Cinematic Universe, Uprising Director Says

The first trailer for Pacific Rim Uprising, the upcoming sci-fi sequel to Guillermo Del Toro's 2014 sci-fi action hit, arrived last week. It has now been reported that the property might be expanded into a full cinematic universe.

Director Steven S. DeKnight spoke to Nerdist and was asked about the possibility of more movies. "I'm certainly hoping so," he said. "I think you'll definitely probably get more comics. The plan was always to use this movie as a launching pad. If enough people show up to this, we've already talked about the plot of the third movie, and how the end of the third movie would expand the universe to a Star Wars/Star Trek-style [franchise] where you can go in many, many different directions.

"You can go main canon, you can go spin-offs, you can go one-offs. Yeah, that's the plan. And I would love to see an animated TV show based on this."

DeKnight's comments are not that surprising. Ever since the Marvel Cinematic Universe became such a huge moneymaker for Disney, rival studios have been looking to expand their own movie franchises into connected universes, with varying degrees of success. DC's superhero universe and Legendary's MonsterVerse have proved popular, but Universal's much-hyped Dark Universe of classic monster movies seems to have stalled after one movie.

Pacific Rim Uprising stars John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Zhang Jin, Cailee Spaeny, and Jing Tian. The film had a troubled development over the years, with Del Toro ultimately handing the directorial reins over to DeKnight but remaining on board as a producer.

The trailer premiered at New York Comic-Con. Check out GameSpot's coverage of the NYCC Pacific Rim Uprising event here. The movie hits theaters on March 23, 2018.