Legendary Pictures has a huge hit on its hand with “Godzilla,” and it looks like giant monster movies are back in style. This has to make them happy since they released the Guillermo Del Toro giant monster vs. giant robot movie “Pacific Rim” last year, only to watch as American audiences largely ignored it. Surely the reason that “Godzilla” outperformed “Pacific Rim” was due to the name value of the monster in the starring role.
Both films were helmed by fantastic directors, although “Godzilla’s” Gareth Edwards only had one other movie in his past heading into this new blockbuster. However, Guillermo Del Toro has made numerous critically acclaimed films and was at one time attached to the “Hobbit” prequels. While “Pacific Rim” was not a huge success in America, it did very well overseas and ended up with $411 worldwide, meaning it was a financial success.
However, according to Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull, there will be a sequel to “Godzilla” but a sequel for “Pacific Rim” is not in the works. It appears that will be another lost opportunity for Del Toro’s legions of fans who have a number of passion projects they want to see Del Toro get the money to create.
“Pacific Rim 2”
Of course, the big project right now is “Pacific Rim 2.” While “Godzilla” has people excited again about giant monsters, it seems that if a “Pacific Rim” sequel was to get off the ground, now would be the time to strike. The big problem here is that Legendary has “Godzilla” doing so well, and has absolutely no reason to make two giant monster movies. Tull did say that Legendary has a great relationship with Del Toro and if he brings them a story that is great, they will consider it. However, there is no reason to think they will choose Del Toro over another Godzilla movie.
“Hellboy 3”
This is nothing new for fans of Guillermo Del Toro. The first “Hellboy” movie was a great comic book movie and then “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” really took the idea and ran with it. Both Del Toro and actor Ron Perlman have often talked about the Hellboy franchise as a trilogy, but there is really no one who is willing to give them the money to finish their story. Del Toro said in an interview in 2013 that they would need to make it in the next six years because Perlman isn’t getting younger.
“Justice League: Dark”
Moving away from the sequels to his previous projects, Del Toro himself has a passion project. After making movies based off comic book characters Hellboy and Blade, Del Toro wants to head over to DC Comics and work on an adaptation of “Justice League: Dark,” the company’s magical based superhero team. However, things are tricky there as one of the characters he wants to use, John Constantine, is getting a television show in the fall of 2014. However, this movie has been in development for over a year now and it doesn’t look like Del Toro is getting any closer. It seems to be his life story.
