STACK #162 April 2018

CINEMA FEATURE

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DESTROY ALL MONSTERS Pacific Rim Uprising director Steven S. DeKnight talks giant monster movies and following in the footsteps of Guillermo del Toro with Scott Hocking.

“I t’s fantastic to be back in Sydney,” says Steven S. DeKnight of returning to Australia to promote Pacific Rim Uprising , which was shot at Fox Studios last year. Tax incentives aside, it made perfect sense to film the blockbuster sequel Down Under, given Australia’s location on the actual Pacific Rim. Indeed, one of Uprising ’s big battle scenes takes place in and around Sydney Harbour. “Plotting out the story, I knew I had this big attack at the end of the first act and I wanted the Pan Pacific Defense Corp headquarters on one of the Pacific Rim cities,” explains DeKnight. “We looked at a lot of different places, but I really needed it to be iconic and immediately identifiable. The great thing about Sydney is that it has a little cameo in the first film, so it harkens back to that.” Following four years in development, the sequel finally received the greenlight in 2016, with Spartacus and Daredevil creator DeKnight at the helm and original Pacific Rim director Guillermo del Toro onboard as a producer. “It’s always nerve-wracking doing a second installment, especially since Guillermo did the first one,” admits DeKnight. “I’ve

mix things up and push the franchise forward. “Guillermo could not have been more supportive,” he adds. “I had to get his blessing with the final sign-off, and he was totally open to handing me the reins and saying ‘go do it.’ To have that vote of confidence from him was huge.” Set ten years after the events of the original film, Pacific Rim Uprising sees the return of the monstrous Kaiju and the giant, human-controlled robots that combat them, the Jaegers. The sequel introduces Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), a former Jaeger pilot who must uphold the legacy of his famous father (played by Idris Elba in Pacific Rim ) following the emergence of a monstrous new threat. Original star Charlie Hunnam was set to return – a draft of the script was based around his character, Raleigh – until a schedule clash saw the sequel go ahead without him. “Through various script iterations we ended up landing on the son of Stacker Pentercost and were so lucky to get John Boyega to play the role,” explains DeKnight, agreeing that it’s not a stretch to imagine Boyega as the son of Idris Elba’s character.

Director Steven S. DeKnight on set with John Boyega and Scott Eastwood

We wanted to mix things up and push the franchise forward

been a fan of his since before I had the privilege of getting into the business and I didn’t want to let him down, and I didn’t want to let the fans down. I didn’t want to give them the same movie again. We wanted to

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APRIL 2018

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