Charlie Hunnam Has One Condition To Return For Pacific Rim 3

In 2013, Guillermo del Toro stunned audiences with "Pacific Rim," a mecha-versus-monster epic that towers over the rest of the Academy Award-winning director's catalogue as his highest-grossing film to date. In a future where Earth's coastal cities are threatened by giant interdimensional monsters called Kaiju, humanity assembles Jaegers — colossal mechas piloted by humans — to defeat them. "Pacific Rim" follows pilots Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) and Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) as they work together to co-pilot the Jaeger Gipsy Danger. In the words of mission leader Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba), they're "cancelling the apocalypse."

An action-packed international hit, "Pacific Rim" quickly gained a cult following and has been favorably compared to the classic mecha anime series "Neon Genesis Evangelion." A sequel, "Pacific Rim Uprising," was directed by Steven S. DeKnight and released in 2018; while Kikuchi returned as Mako, Hunnam's Raleigh was noticeably absent. It is unknown if "Pacific Rim 3" will ever happen, but Hunnam has one condition for appearing in a proposed threequel: Guillermo del Toro must return to direct it. "I would do anything that Guillermo was doing," Hunnam told Inverse. "If Guillermo invites me to do 'Pacific Rim 3,' I'll be there. Or anything else he wants to do."

"Pacific Rim Uprising" was deemed an inferior, unimaginative imitation of the first film despite good performances from rising stars John Boyega and Cailee Spaeny as a new generation of Jaeger pilots. It left fans wondering what happened to Charlie Hunnam's Raleigh Becket. While that question remains unanswered, we know why the actor wasn't involved: In a 2020 interview with Collider, Hunnam revealed that he had been in talks to appear in the "Pacific Rim" sequel when del Toro was still attached, but he was "booked up" when "Uprising" finally went into production. So why the delay?

Fans will be frustrated to know that del Toro left the sequel because the studio forgot to put a deposit down on the required sound stages. "They had to give a deposit for the stages at 5PM or we would lose the stages in Toronto for many months," del Toro told Collider. "So I said, 'Don't forget, we're going to lose the stages,' and 5 o'clock came and went, and we lost the stages." While the studio tried to make it work with del Toro (even suggesting moving the shoot to China), he decided that there wouldn't be enough time for him to do both the "Pacific Rim" follow-up and "The Shape of Water," so he exited the project.

Of course, "The Shape of Water" became a big hit. The romantic fantasy film won best picture and best director at the Academy Awards, bringing del Toro new levels of artistic and critical success. That's little consolation for "Pacific Rim" fans, however, who lost out on a del Toro-directed "Pacific Rim" sequel over a clerical error. To this day, the Mexican filmmaker hasn't seen "Pacific Rim Uprising." He said it would be like "watching home movies from your ex-wife."