Guillermo Del Toro Reveals Why He Didnt Direct Pacific Rim Sequel, Says He Never Saw

September 2024 · 4 minute read

Guillermo del Toro revealed he had to drop out of directing the sequel to his 2013 kaiju blockbuster “Pacific Rim” due to scheduling conflicts with “The Shape of Water.”

The director walked away from 2018’s “Pacific Rim Uprising” as a result of significant delays caused by a producer’s late payment on Toronto soundstages, Del Toro revealed to Collider in a recent interview.

“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. Then what happened is — I mean, this is why life’s crazy, right? — they had to give a deposit for the stages at 5 p.m. or we would lose the stages in Toronto for many months,” Del Toro said. “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? I’ve gotta go do ‘Shape of Water.’”

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“Pacific Rim Uprising” was ultimately directed by Steven S. DeKnight. Although Del Toro had intended for “Pacific Rim” to be the beginning of a franchise, the sequel received middling reviews.

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“It’s a behind-the-scenes change that’s felt in ways both big and small, as this second entry in the franchise ditches, or downgrades, many of the elements that made del Toro’s original unique, while reconfiguring its style and attitude to more closely align with that of the “Transformers” films – a makeover that not only renders this follow-up unremarkable, but suggests (given the underwhelming box-office performance of Michael Bay’s last Hasbro-based effort) diminished long-term prospects with robot-fatigued audiences,” reads Variety‘s “Pacific Rim Uprising” review.

While Del Toro is credited as an executive producer on the sequel, he admits he never saw “Pacific Rim Uprising.”

“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,” Del Toro explained. “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.”

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