Though a sequel to last year’s Jaeger vs. Kaiju slugfest, PACIFIC RIM, is still only in early pre-production, director Guillermo del Toro is staying optimistic about a trilogy. While speaking with Collider, del Toro explained that the eventual PACIFIC RIM 2 will be quite ambitious:

The direction we’re going in is very different from the first. All I can say is some of your favorite characters come back, some others don’t because we have decided that we’re going to shoot ambitiously and say ‘Let’s hope we have three movies,’ so some characters come in at the end of the second, hoping that it will ramp up on the third one. I hope people like it but you’re gonna get a very different experience from the first one.

Anyone who knows me knows that I went absolutely hysterical over PACIFIC RIM last year and that I’ve been salivating over the thought of a sequel ever since. I’m quite ecstatic over the news that del Toro’s planning two sequels, but I’m also skeptical because I wouldn’t want to be left hanging if a third film doesn’t happen (though I’m praying to the kaiju gods that it does).

del Toro also discussed the time table that he’s working off of for PACIFIC RIM 2:

We got the first draft of the movie now, and we are going to spend another 4 to 5 months on the screenplay before we start pre-production. We start pre-production next year in August-September and start shooting November-December next year.

That screenplay is of course co-written by both del Toro and franchise newcomer Zak Penn (THE INCREDIBLE HULK) who replaced the first film’s writer, Travis Beacham, after he had to back out due to prior commitments.

It’s unknown which characters will be back for the sequel, though it’s expected that we’ll eventually see Charlie Hunnam’s Raleigh Becket and Rinko Kikuchi’s Mako Mori return at some point. PACIFIC RIM 2 is tentatively on schedule for an April 7, 2017 release.