by: S. Scott Stanikmas

It’s an enemy even the great Jaeger robot Gipsy Danger can’t beat…the kaiju sized dollar signs in the eyes of Hollywood executives.

The Hollywood Reporter says that even though production was gearing up for shooting to start next month, Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim 2 has been “halted indefinitely” with no guarantee of it ever getting back up and running again.

While no outright reason was given, it most likely will come down to the money. While the first film wasn’t cheap at $190M, it did bank over $400M worldwide. Even with a dismal US box office it did make a bit of a return for Legendary and Universal.

But this was always one of those movies where unless it made back three times what it did and sold out shows everywhere in it’s US opening weekend a sequel was never a sure thing.

del Toro had already made plans for a sequel before the first film hit theaters, which makes this even sadder as he’s been geared up for this since 2013. He’s not lacking for projects, but you could tell from interviews that he really loved this idea and the universe he created.

I’m personally let down by this. Pacific Rim was one of my favorite films of 2013 and I felt it was a worthy successor to the kaiju crown that Godzilla had seemingly left behind. And I still like it better than Warner Bros recent Godzilla film. PR was just more fun and easier to visually digest.

Hopefully these matters can get resolved and the film gets back on track for its original August 4, 2017 release date. Otherwise another great original idea gets lost to The Breach.