Monster madness as Hollywood gets giddy over all things giant… except the only original movie of them all, Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim sequel, Maelstrom, it seems (yes, we know it’s a sequel, but we’re using original as in ‘concept’).
Read on for the details….
THR reports that Warner Brothers is planning monster trilogy “that kicks off with Kong; followed by a sequel to 2014’s Godzilla, the biggest Warners hit originated by Legendary ($529 million worldwide); followed by a mashup that pits the ape against Godzilla. Warners is said to be kicking in 25 percent of budgets as well as marketing costs on the Kong films.”
However, in not so happy news, it seems that money has won out in the quest to get the Pacific Rim sequel made: “Legendary wanted to produce a sequel to del Toro’s Pacific Rim, which was made under the Warners deal and turned into one of those films that grosses a lot ($411 million worldwide) while being so costly that a follow-up isn’t a sure thing. Sources say Legendary liked that the original performed exceptionally well in China, where the company is heavily invested, but for now the project — which had been ramping up to make a release date in August 2017 — has been halted indefinitely and will be pushed back (if it gets made at all).”
Godzilla and Kong (although Peter Jackson’s movie and the theme park are both under the Universal banner, Kong is in the public domain, so basically anyone can make a movie) both being at Warners now means that the two franchises can merge, settling an apparently ongoing row over the script’s references to Monarch, the secret government entity in Godzilla that employed the characters played by Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins.
Warners obviously weren’t going to let Universal having access to the Godzilla franchise. Confused? Yeah, us too…
When news of the crossover first broke (here) lots of fans on our social pages (and in the FTN HQ) pointed out that Kong is tiny compared to Godzilla and the idea is a bit, well, silly and this is something that Universal were aware of too, with one of their insiders commenting: “There were funny comments about him having to be the size of the Empire State Building instead of hanging off of it.”
However, now it seems that a solution has been worked out that will see the duo fight… and possibly even become allies.
We’re still confused about why Del Toro’s Pacific Rim sequel had to pay the price because, frankly, most of here at FTN would much rather see the Jaegers return than another Kong or Godzilla movie (not that we don’t want to see these, we do, we just really loved Pacific Rim), hell, surely the THREE franchises could co-exist?
As for the animated Pacific Rim series? Well, that’s anyone’s guess at this point.
Now that would have been something…
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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