The Hollywood Reporter reports Warner Bros. has set a July 12, 2013 release date for Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro’s first film in what will be five years by the time it hits theaters. The film, written by Travis Beacham (Clash of the Titans), is a creature feature set in the near future in which malevolent creatures threaten the earth. The planet must band together and use highly advanced technology to eradicate the growing menace. So far, the cast includes Charlie Hunnam, Charlie Day and Idris Elba and will shoot in Toronto in November.
Del Toro has been interviewing all over town recently with the juiciest quote regarding Pacific Rim coming from Collider where he said the work he’s put in so far has been “the greatest experience” of his life. He also goes on to describe it as “the biggest giant monster movie ever made.”
He also told Shock Til You Drop, “This is my most un-modest film, this has everything. The scale is enormous and I’m just a big kid having fun.”
The director has also commented on At the Mountains of Madness, an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s novel that had Tom Cruise attached to star at Universal until the film fell apart earlier this year over budgetary and rating reasons. Del Toro, however, won’t be giving the project up anytime soon.
Talking to the Los Angeles Times he said, “Mountains of Madness, the way I plan to do it is a very peculiar take, and I think if I don’t stick with it the version I would like to see would never get made.”
As far as the rating for that film is concerned, del Toro wants an R while Universal wanted a PG-13 given the size of the budget. Well, as the del Toro-produced thriller Don’t be Afraid of the Dark played at the Los Angeles Film Festival over the weekend del Toro used it to discuss the ratings issue with Mountains of Madness:
“I’d rather address the budget than the rating,” Del Toro said. “The movie can perfectly someday be PG-13, but contractually I need to protect it. There’s nothing in the movie that is profanity or sexual situations or any of that. But what we learned with ‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’ is that sometimes intensity, the intensity of the situations, garners you the R. ‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,’ in my mind, should be a PG-13. It’s several intense moments [that] got us the R — I think some of the situations at the end, I don’t want to spoil it, but there are a couple of moments at the end that they deemed were too intense and I didn’t want to water down the movie.”
The goal for del Toro is to move from Pacific Rim straight back ton Mountains as he tells the L.A. Times, “I’m going to keep pursuing it. Universal is still really interested in doing it. Coming out of Pacific Rim, I intend to see if we can do it immediately.”
So perhaps by 2015 or so we’ll see del Toro’s unique take on Lovecraft’s novel, until then July 12, 2013 is when you will see his next film.
