Star Wars’ John Boyega shares new look at Pacific Rim: Uprising

John Boyega is in the middle of filming Pacific Rim: Uprising, the sequel to Guillermo del Toro’s 2013 movie about giant mech fighters, called Jaegers, taking on Kaiju monsters, and shared the first official look at his character earlier today.

Boyega tweeted out the image with the caption “I am Pentecost,” referring to his character, Jake Pentecost, the son of Idris Elba’s character from the first movie, Stacker Pentecost. There isn’t much to take away from the photo, but Boyega is wearing civilian clothes instead of a Jaeger pilot’s uniform.

Boyega and the rest of the Pacific Rim: Uprising cast have tweeted out concept art from the film in the past, but this is the first, not-behind-the-scenes image from the movie to be seen. Boyega first announced he was joining the film in June 2016. It was later confirmed that Boyega’s Pentecost would be the main character in the film following the departure of Charlie Hunnam, who played a pilot in the first movie.

Along with Hunnam, del Toro announced his departure from the project after spending years trying to get it made. He’ll remain active on the film as an executive producer, but Daredevil executive producer Steven S. DeKnight will direct the sequel.

For a long time, Pacific Rim: Uprising’s future seemed to be in jeopardy. It wasn’t until Chinese film giant, Wanda, acquired Legendary Entertainment for $3.5 billion in January 2016 that Pacific Rim: Uprising seemed to get any traction. Chinese film studios and distributors have been trying to breach the filmgoing audience in the country by bringing over blockbuster films, like Godzilla and Pacific Rim. Considering Pacific Rim: Uprising shares themes and settings that align with arcs seen in Japanese storytelling, it became the perfect movie to market toward an Asian audience.

Although Pacific Rim didn’t perform as well in the North American market as Legendary would have liked, pulling in $100 million domestically, the movie over-performed in both the European and Asian markets, taking in more than $300 million worldwide.

Pacific Rim: Uprising, which also stars Scott Eastwood, Charlie Day and Rinko Kikuchi, will be released on Feb. 23, 2018.