Pacific Rim 2 may never happen

We've been eagerly awaiting any new information about Guillermo del Toro's follow up to his monster melee but there are problems afoot

Say whatever you like but we really enjoyed Pacific Rim. It was obviously big and stupid on purpose, and features some of the best beast-on-bot action ever put on the big screen. The film didn't make a lot of money in the US but did decent business overseas, leading to some interest in returning for a sequel.

Certainly director Guillermo del Toro is game and has been recently talking about getting back to that drawing board after he's done with gothic horror Crimson Peak. But that may not happen now, thanks to awkwardness behind the scenes between Universal Studios and Legendary Pictures. Legendary has just started a new five year deal with Universal after moving on from a similar arrangement with Warner Bros. And they've brought some huge properties together for both studios, including having fingers in the likes of Jurassic World, Godzilla, Man of Steel, The Dark Knight Rises and many more.

The Hollywood Reporter has been delving into the situation and finding that things are far from rosy. Despite the union between the two companies, Universal has refused to add financing to the upcoming Kong movie and also removed themselves from del Toro's Crimson Peak - apparently because they didn't want to be involved in an R-rated film at that budget.

This dispute also effects the future of Pacific Rim, with no firm financing in place. That means the movie is currently 'halted indefinitely' and won't make its proposed 2017 release date. Given del Toro's bad luck with movie projects - he's constantly attached to films that don't get made and even worked for years on The Hobbit trilogy but had to bow out as director - this sounds to us like a death knell for Pacific Rim 2.

Still at least we know for sure that Crimson Peak is coming out, with a definite release date of October 16th 2015.