Though he may have been attached to an early version of Pacific Rim 2 – perhaps when the sequel was tethered with the subtitle Maelstrom – Charlie Hunnam has officially ruled himself out of Steven S. DeKnight’s 2018 creature feature.
Chatting with Yahoo Movies regarding his title role in Guy Ritchie’s long-awaited King Arthur reboot (see the inspired Comic-Con trailer here), the Sons of Anarchy stalwart revealed that Raleigh Becket won’t feature in Legendary and Universal Pictures’ monstrous sequel after all.
Even throughout Pacific Rim 2‘s rocky foray into pre-production – at a time when Universal placed the follow-up on ice indefinitely – many assumed that the sequel would pick up the adventures of Beckett and Mako Mori (played by Rinko Kikuchi) as the squared off against a new wave of Kaiju. Then again, the addition of John Boyega cast doubt over that proposed narrative arc, now that The Force Awakens breakout is set to take point as the next generation of Jaeger pilot and, if early reports to be believed, the son of Idris Elba’s glowering Stacker Pentecost.
In closing, Hunnam made no bones about Pacific Rim 2 continuing on without him, revealing to Yahoo, “I’m very excited about it. I’m glad they’re making it.”
Emerging from a worrying time spent in development limbo, Pacific Rim 2 is on course to stomp into theaters on February 28, 2018. On the other hand, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword lands on March 24, 2017