We were recently treated to the first trailer forPacific Rim 2, which looks like it could be kicking off the much larger franchise that many assumed the first movie would be responsible for. The movie doesn’t arrive for another five months and is still going through the post-production process, but director Steven S. DeKnight has things locked down. In fact, he already knows the runtime.
It’s one thing for a director to roughly know the runtime of a movie while editing and lockingPacific Rim Uprising, but this is pretty impressive. Steven S. DeKnight is still finishing things up, but he’s confident that the movie will be sitting right at the two-hour mark. Here’s what he had to say in a recent interview.
“It’s resting right around two hours. I always shoot for two hours. If I was doing Lawrence of Arabia it would be a little longer, but otherwise I think the two-hour mark, this is just for me as somebody that loves movies and watches movies, two hours is always right around the sweet spot. If it’s much less than two hours then I start to get a little suspicious, if it’s much more longer sometimes a movie will support that but sometimes you just get a little worn out.”
Guillermo Del Toro’s originalPacific Rimclocks in at 172 minutes, making it just a bit longer than the sequel will be. Typically, the runtime for a movie won’t be revealed until much closer to the release. In the case ofPacific Rim: Uprising, the movie isn’t scheduled to arrive in theaters untilMarch 23, 2018. So we probably will get an official runtime confirmation closer to that point, but expect it to be right around two hours. AsSteven S. DeKnightreveals, even his director’s cut isn’t much longer than that.
“I think my director’s cut was 2 hours 18 minutes, around there. It was in the ballpark, and then I got a chance to step back, look at the movie, talk with the producers, really kick the tires and it’s kind of like the last rewrite of the script. There are things that suddenly became very clear that you don’t need this, you don’t need that, you can move this over here, the story is much cleaner and much more exciting that way.”
Pacific Rim 2, if all goes well, will lead to a third entry in the franchise. And, if things go really well, we could see an entire cinematic universe that will crossover with Godzilla and King Kong at some point. Before that happens, we need to actually see if audiences turn up forPacific Rim: Uprising. Though, as revealed in this interview withCollider, it sounds like Steven S. DeKnight isn’t asking anyone to sit through anunreasonably long epic. He’s positioning it the “sweet spot,” as he put it. Not a lot of filler. Just the right amount ofgiant robotsand giant aliens.
