PACIFIC RIM 2: Guillermo Del Toro Teases Story Details and Returning Cast Members

Writer/director Guillermo del Toro is about to start shooting his mysterious new film The Shape of Water in Toronto, so he's not able to make it to this year's San Diego Comic-Con. That's a bummer for fans who always look forward to hearing what he has to say on his wildly entertaining (and often foul-mouthed) panels, but the good news is that THR caught up with him anyway and he revealed some information about the eagerly anticipated Pacific Rim 2, which he's producing:

On returning cast members:

As a producer I learned not to declare anything about a movie I’m not directing. I can tell you this — a lot of the cast from the first movie is coming back. I leave those communications to Steven DeKnight. He’s not only a director, but he’s actually a guy I respect and admire and it’s his movie.

On expanding the universe with this sequel and the animated series:

If and when the animated series happens, we are mixing them. In fact the sequel takes some ideas that we created for the animated series originally. I think we need to let the live-action lead. When we went with Steven we showed him everything we were developing and he said, ‘I like this from this universe, I like this from this element, I want to bring them into the movie.’ It’s easy to expand cause you have not only the Jaeger-human universe and the Kaiju-alien universe, but (also) the fact that you are now able to play in a very history-filled universe. We started the war with the Kaiju, we won the war with the Kaiju and now it’s a postwar of those two universes.

It's cool that DeKnight is basically able to pick and choose the best parts of the world that he wants to include in this new movie. Hopefully that will result in the best possible quality for the sequel. And the whole post-war aspect reminds me a little of Independence Day: Resurgence, so hopefully they take some lessons from what that movie did wrong. The whole interview is worth a read, and you can check it out in full here.

Pacific Rim 2 stars John Boyega, and hits theaters on February 23, 2018. Sounds like we might be hearing some more casting announcements soon.