"Pacific Rim: Maelstrom," the sequel to the 2013 Guillermo del Toro film "Pacific Rim," was initially scheduled to begin production in Toronto in November of this year. However, Latino Review reported that the production has now been delayed to an unspecified date in 2016.
The media outlet has reached to production company Legendary Pictures regarding why the film's shooting schedule was postponed but the latter hasn't replied as of the time of writing.
"Pacific Rim: Maelstrom" is currently slated to hit theaters on Aug. 4, 2017 although the report states that the delayed production schedule might mean the release date will also be pushed back a bit. At this point, Legendary Pictures hasn't officially changed the release schedule.
Production for "Pacific Rim: Maelstrom" has been troublesome since the first film hit theaters. As pointed out by Cinema Blend, the first film had a budget of $190 million and took a long time to reach a profitable $411 million take-in globally for the studios to even consider green lighting a sequel.
Guillermo del Toro is also known for having many projects to work with simultaneously and it came as a surprise to many that he decided to pick up "Pacific Rim: Maelstrom" instead of instantly moving to "Hellboy 3" or his other projects.
As previously reported, del Toro plans to bring back all of the surviving characters from the first film to the second one. This would almost guarantee the return of lead characters Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) and Mariko Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) and a possible return of Ron Perlman as the black market tradesman Hannibal Chau.
The movie's plot will reportedly take place several years following the closure of the Rift and will focus on a world where humans are adjusting to a society without constant Kaiju attacks. According to Cinema Blend, a part of "Maelstrom" will also showcase what happened to the Jaeger pilots such as Raleigh now that they don't have any monsters to fight.
