Pacific Rim 2 isn't dead yet, says Guillermo del Toro

To the cautious rejoicing of Pacific Rim fans everywhere, Guillermo del Toro appears to be canceling the apocalypse.

Earlier this week, buried in an article about Legendary Pictures moving its King Kong flick from Universal to Warner Bros., the Hollywood Reporter shared its understanding that in Legendary's change circumstances had forced the studio to pull back from its planned sequel to Pacific Rim. Though Pacific Rim made more than $400 million globally, it performed poorly in America, and sequel plans were always unnervingly tentative. At least, they were for folks who enjoyed Guillermo del Toro's bombastic film about giant monsters fighting giant robots and the people who pilot them.

But del Toro himself weighed in on Pacific Rim 2's status in an interview with Entertainment Weekly yesterday, and the eternally optimistic director was, unsurprisingly, optimistic about the production.

"We are still turning in a screenplay and a budget in three weeks. As far as I'm concerned, it's not gone. We're still on it."

So according to del Toro, the film is delayed at the moment, but not cancelled, putting it on a list of the director's long-planned, eternally beleaguered film productions (along with Hellboy 3 and The Mountains of Madness). Reports of a Pacific Rim sequel's demise may have been slightly exaggerated, but it's certainly not the sure thing it was a few weeks ago.