Guillermo del Toro’s name is attached to so many projects these days, you’d think the famous Kevin Bacon movie game is about to be renamed Six Degrees of del Toro.
The director has set up a number of projects because in Hollywood movies can fall apart quickly, and at least one del Toro project, At the Mountains of Madness, didn’t come together at Universal – probably because some bean counter actually preferred Battleship instead.
So after a few years away from filmmaking, del Toro’s next project is a sci-fi film called Pacific Rim, which is due to hit theaters in July 2013.
Originally, nobody was quite sure what the movie was all about, although Vulture initially described it as a “huge-monsters-versus-huge-robots-driven-by-humans picture.”
Pretty good thumbnail sketch there, but the following (official) plot synopsis just went live a few hours ago:
“When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge.”
Sound good so far? Think del Toro could do a good job with it? Just wait, there’s more.
“Even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the cace of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes – a washed up former pilot and an untested trainee – who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope agains the mounting apocalypse.”
Pacific Rim stars Chalei Hunnam from Sons of Anarchy, Idris Elba from Thor, Rinko Kikuchi, Charley Day, and Hellboy himself, Ron Perlman. The script was written by Travis Beacham (Clash of the Titans), and again, we’ll find out next July if del Toro can successfully deliver a big, crazy, epic sci-fi flick.
