Fuck Yeah! PACIFIC RIM 2 Will Happen in 2017! Plus An Animated Series!

The apocalypse will be cancelled.  Again.

Pacific Rim was my favorite movie of last summer, without question.  It's in extremely heavy rotation at our house, both because we bought the blu-ray as soon as it was available and because it's been playing on HBO about 4 times a day for months now.  It's essentially become our default programming choice, whether it's watching the movie the whole way through, having something on in the background while cooking dinner or just killing 25 minutes between other activities.  Why American audiences didn't turn out for this thing in droves, (yet Transformers 4 will likely emerge as the highest grossing/most terrible movie of the summer) I will simply never understand.

Fortunately the rest of the world has much better taste than us, as Pacific Rim was a MASSIVE hit overseas. And since the release of the first film, Legendary Pictures has vacated the Warner Brothers lot and set up shop over at Universal.  Those guys could use a big franchise and it looks like Pacific Rim will be it.  Director Guillermo del Toro released this brief YouTube announcement yesterday, confirming that we will be getting an animated series as well as a second film that will hit theaters April 7, 2017.

I am absurdly happy about this.  The world of Pacific Rim is so incredibly rich and detailed that it feels as if del Toro could literally take this thing in about 50 different directions, all equally badass.  And considering how the last film ended, with all the jaegers destroyed and the kaiju breach sealed, he's beholden to very little from a story standpoint.  In fact, I kind of hope that the next film takes place another ten years in the future, with a new cast and a new status quo.  Charlie Hunnam's Raleigh Becket was easily the weakest link of the first film, but he also feels totally replaceable.  In fact, the only characters that I really NEED to see return are Mako Mori and Hannibal Chau.

I'm equally excited for this animated series which will not only continue to flesh out the universe but also hopefully attract a loyal and younger following.  Pacific Rim might have disappointed at the box office, but I suspect that it's winning over more and more fans on blu-ray (and apparently HBO).  Getting a few years worth of further stories ramping up to the next film can only be a good thing.

Long live Gypsy Danger!

Start Your Week Off Right With The New Trailer For GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

Captain America: The Winter Soldier kicked off the summer in grand style.  Now it looks almost certain that Guardians Of The Galaxy will serve as the appropriately kickass bookend and close the summer out with a goddamn bang.

Every look at James Gunn's entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe looks even more preposterously fun than the one before it.  Seriously, I still can't believe that I live in a world where an outer space adventure movie starring Chris Pratt, a foul-mouthed raccoon and a walking tree-person voiced by Vin Diesel is allowed to exist, let alone be bankrolled by a major studio to the tune of $150 million.  And make no mistake, every single penny looks to be up on screen.  It feels like the entire movie takes place in one those richly detailed worlds that Guillermo del Toro leaves dangling in the margins of his movies, places like the Bone Slums of Pacific Rim or the Troll Market of Hellboy 2.  Are we really gonna get a planet shaped like a giant skull?  Fuck yeah.

I'm sure there are those out there who will complain that they still don't know what this movie is actually about.  Those people are dumb people.  If rocket boots, space prisons, John C. Reilly: Intergalactic Beat Cop and an upright raccoon with a giant laser gun hoisted up on his shoulder while scratching his crotch doesn't put your ass in the theater, you're barking up the wrong Groot.

As a bonus, here's a poster that should be hanging in dorm rooms all across the country this fall.  Don't let me down, college kids.

Daley Screening Podcast: Drifting With PACIFIC RIM!

"You can always find me in the Drift."

So I realize that I'm officially WAY late to the party at this point, but I really had my heart set on doing something different for my Pacific Rim entry.  I spent a solid week live-tweeting other giant monster movies in the run up to the film's release and I'd been long planning to seeing it along with my resident "Kaiju guru" Bart Devon*, who's been one of my best friends since high school and also officiated my wedding.  I really wanted the two of us to record a sort of podcast/conversation, but I quickly ran into a few scheduling snafus.  First of all, the movie hit theaters only a few days before I left for Mexico, and then right after I got back Bart went totally off the grid while he took the bar exam.  But we finally got a chance to sit down a few nights ago and, having each seen the film twice now, we had a freewheeling chat about what I think is indisputably the best movie of the summer.

Pacific Rim begs to be seem in a theater on the largest screen possible, but at this point your viewing options are pretty limited.  I can't figure out why the movie didn't seem to catch on with audiences; it got massacred on it's opening weekend by the putrid Grown Ups 2, so thanks for nothing America!  Fortunately the film's been killing it overseas, so we just might get a sequel after all.  We'll see.  I saw it once in IMAX and once as my inaugural trip to the new Showcase SuperLux theater in Chestnut Hill, and I'd just like to point out how impressed I was by that theater and its staff.  Tickets are expensive (I think we paid about $20 a person) but every seat is a super comfortable leather recliner and there's meal service at your seat, with $5 of food or drink included in the price of your ticket.  What's more the staff was extremely friendly and accommodating, going above and beyond to make sure that we were totally satisfied with our viewing experience.  Usher Lucy even brought us into the theater so we could check out the remaining seats before we bought our tickets.  It's a level of service you rarely see anymore and I never mind paying more for what amounts to a truly premium experience.  For those of you in L.A., it reminded me a lot of the Arclight - you even get to choose your own seats in advance!

I don't want to rehash our conversation here, but suffice it to say we both enjoyed the living shit out of Pacific Rim, even while recognizing that the film has a couple of weak points.  But, much like J.J. Abrams' original Star Trek reboot, the movie is so absurdly fun that you're willing to overlook the flaws.  (Sadly, the same cannot be said about Star Trek Into Darkness.)  It should also be noted that this conversation was recorded immediately after we'd finished watching The Man With The Iron Fists while drinking a bunch of whiskey, so we were more than a bit punchy and perhaps a little rambling.  (The conversation kicks off with a meandering breakdown of this year's big summer movies, but we do make our way back on topic before long.)  The occasional clinking noise you hear in the background is from the ice cubes in my drink.

But let me know if you enjoy this because I'd like to do one or two more of these audio chats and, if I get really ambitious, maybe even a video chat as well.

Click here for streaming version if you want to listen right now or right click here to save a downloadable mp3 if you want to take it on the go.  (If you're having trouble listening through Tumblr, you can stream from the second link too.)


Enjoy.

PS - The music running under our conversation is Ramin Djawadi's score for the film, which we didn't get a chance to talk about but which kicks unholy amounts of ass.


*In the podcast I refer to him as my "giant monster sherpa."  I wish I had been clever enough in the moment to come up with Kaiju guru, but at least I get to do it in print.


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Title: Pacific Rim
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Max Martini, Rob Kazinsky, Ron Perlman, Clifton Collins Junior, Burn Gorman
Year Of Release: 2013
Viewing Method: Theatrical - IMAX 3D, Reading + Showcase SuperLux, Chestnut Hill