Image from ‘Pacific Rim,’ courtesy of Warner Bros. and Legendary
If Pacific Rim 2 gets cancelled, it will arguably be for the same reason that Walt Disney DIS +0.96% pulled the plug on Tron 3.There is a big, juicy piece in The Hollywood Reporter today about the push-and-pull between Legendary and Universal/Comcast CMCSA +1.72%. A lot of it has to do with the whole “Skull Island goes to Warner Bros./Time Warner TWX +0.00%” thing with a little bit of bad blood concerning Legendary’s Thomas Tull perhaps taking too much credit for mega-hits like The Dark Knight and Jurassic World over the years. I will admit that I am a little disheartened to hear that Universal wasn’t thrilled about a film as expensive as Crimson Peak going out as an R, but that may be for another day if I get a chance to discuss their still worthwhile slate of theatrical horror films this year. The big geek news concerns the now uncertain fate of Pacific Rim 2. The film was slotted for August 4, 2017, before it was pulled off the schedule a week or so ago. At this moment, its future is up in the air — it may never actually happen. In other words, it may suffer the fate of Walt Disney’s Tron 3. And if that happens it will be, I would argue, for the same general reasons.
As much as some of us love Pacific Rim (and that I didn’t care for it doesn’t mean I don’t admire what it does right and respect the fellow critics/nerds who love it), the Guillermo del Toro movie wasn’t a smash hit in 2013. At a cost of $190 million, the Warner Bros. release earned just $101 million in America and only avoided flop status due to strong business in China, where the film grossed $111 million and pushed the worldwide total to $411 million. A sequel was seemingly green-lit last year, this time for Universal since Warner Bros. and Legendary mostly parted ways. That was in June of 2014, where Universal was working its way through a robustly successful 2014 that lacked a single conventional tent pole. For a studio that perhaps wanted an extra franchise to impress the stockholders, a Pacific Rim sequel made, well, “sense” is too strong a word, but it wasn’t a terrible idea if costs could be contained or if a movie star could be procured.
Disney has the Marvel movies, the Star Wars films, the Pixar animated films, the Disney animated films, the “live action version of animated classic” franchise, and the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. As such, there was no reason to roll the dice on Tron 3. And with Universal now having surefire franchise plays in Fast 8, Jurassic World 2, Despicable Me 3, Pitch Perfect 3, Fifty Shades Darker, The Purge 3, Ride Along 2, Neighbors 2, and whatever else might break out in 2016 (such as Monster High or whatever becomes of their alleged monster universe franchises), a not terribly surefire proposition like Pacific Rim 2, with the important caveat that we’ve already seen one film barely avoid being a massive money loser, doesn’t seem like a must-have item on the docket.
Pacific Rim 2 might just be the kind of iffy franchise play that would be useful to a studio that could use a few more franchises (like ironically, Warner Bros. or maybe Sony ), but Universal is swimming in franchise gold right now while offering a relatively diverse multiplex slate. You can argue that a studio as successful as Universal should be more willing to roll the dice, but at this point they are in a position where they don’t have to. We’ll see how this all plays out soon enough. I’d imagine if Crimson Peak flops (which I’m really hoping it does not for the sake of big-scale theatrical horror) then Pacific Rim 2 is probably dead at Universal. If it’s a huge hit, or maybe if they can get a big star onboard, that’s a different story. Pacific Rim 2 was always a dicey proposition, something of a game changer in that it was a sequel that was only a hit outside of America. It would have been a fascinating release to follow. But I will understand if it never comes to pass. LINK
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