Pacific Rim is downsizing from the big screen to the small screen for Netflix’s upcoming anime series. Netflix ordered an initial two seasons, but may order more episodes if the show proves to be popular enough. Netflix plans for the show to premiere in 2020.
Pacific Rim was brought to theaters by the visionary director Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water) in 2013. Toro wanted to create a love letter to classic sci-fi and monster films, so he brought the two elements together in a film that had human-piloted robots (known as Jaegers) fighting giant monsters called Kaiju. The film underperformed in the U.S. markets but did exceedingly well in other areas, such as the Asian market. Due to its overseas success, a sequel was released five years later. Toro did not return for the sequel, Pacific Rim Uprising, and the film made less money than its predecessor and was widely criticized.
The new anime show centers on siblings who pilot an abandoned Jaeger with the hopes of finding their missing parents. The showrunners are Craig Kyle (Thor: Ragnarok) and Greg Johnson (Wolverine and the X-Men). The show will be produced by Legendary Entertainment in partnership with Tokyo’s Polygon Pictures. At Project Anime this year, Elie Dekel, Vice President of Brand Development and Consumer Products, said, “[This is] one of the biggest budget anime series I’ve had the pleasure of working on, and I think that speaks to the commitment of Netflix and Legendary [to anime]”.
The Pacific Rim show will not be the only Netflix Original anime show. Current projects include Gods & Heroes, Altered Carbon, Trese, and Cagaster of an Insect Cage (working title). Trese is about a woman who fights supernatural crime in her city and is based on the Filipino comic series. Cagaster of an Insect Cage is based off a manga series about a disease that has decimated the human population by turning the infected into bloodthirsty insects.