Fresh from his confirmation as the crown prince of feel-good fantasy, Guillermo del Toro is cranking the volume up to 11 as producer of the sequel to smash-’em-up blockbuster Pacific Rim.
Pacific Rim: Uprising — an altogether brasher, more rambunctious sci-fi tentpole than the Mexican filmmaker’s Oscar-winning 2017 opus The Shape of Water — is tracking to top the North American box office with upwards of $22 million (Dh80.7 million) this weekend.
Del Toro — who helmed the original — has handed directing duties to TV creative Steven S. DeKnight (Spartacus, Smallville) for the sequel, which is not expected to turn the kind of profit of the 2013 film.
Box office observers are wagering nevertheless that even a modest debut weekend could be enough to end the historic reign of Marvel’s Black Panther, which has begun to slow down after five weeks at the top.
“As Black Panther has week after week dispatched a string of high profile newcomers, Pacific Rim likely has the goods to unseat the undisputed king of the box office,” Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst at comScore said.
“It’s a testament to the power of Black Panther that at six weeks into its run it still has everyone wondering if it could lead the charge once again.”
Set 10 years later, the sequel follows a new generation of pilots of the first film’s giant Jaeger military mechanoids — don’t call them robots — fending off the truly enormous Kaiju monsters aiming to end humanity.
It has had mixed early reviews, and the San Francisco Chronicle’s description of “a lot of pounding, smashing and driving, purely functional” a fair reflection of the more lukewarm write-ups.
The movie centres around Star Wars sensation John Boyega, whose starring parts since alien attack thriller Attack the Block in 2011 have helped amass an impressive $3.4 billion worldwide. The film is currently out in the UAE.
