"No word on when filming begins but Skull Island is set to open on November 4th 2016, and hopefully it's just a step towards the King Kong vs. Godzilla vs. Pacific Rim battle we all want to see."
For a few years I've been hoping Legendary would see what we all saw, that a crossover between King Kong, Godzilla, and the mechanized jaegers of Pacific Rim would be too awesome to ignore for long. How could you not take advantage of having all of these gigantic movies under the same flag? Well, apparently it hasn't slipped by them, and Uprising director Steven S. DeKnight says there has been some conversation about making it happen. Here's what he told Collider when asked...
“I won’t say there’s an Easter egg, but there’s been a lot of discussion about that possibility [of crossing over]. Look, I think it would be fantastic to have the Pacific Rim universe join Legendary’s monster universe, it seems like a natural step. And part of the big overall plan after the third movie we’ve talked about is that could happen, it’s always a possibility. It’s by far not a certainty; it’s merely theoretical at this point, but as a fan myself I would love to see that happen.”
Legendary already has a growing cinematic universe, which took a big step forward with Kong: Skull Island, and will continue with Michael Dougherty's Godzilla: King of the Monsters in 2019. Then comes Adam Wingard's smash 'em up Godzilla vs. Kong in 2020. Could a showdown with Pacific Rim follow? Certainly the plan is to expand on the jaeger/kaiju battle royale if everything falls into place. DeKnight says the sequel “is hopefully the first step in a bigger Pacific Rim franchise.”
He continued...
“Oh we definitely leave it open to another installment. The tricky thing with something like this is you want to not end on a cliffhanger. You don’t want an Empire Strikes Back cliffhanger unless you know you’re gonna do a third movie—you want to leave it open but also wrap it up. So that’s very much what we did on this movie. It has a definitive ending but very much open to the next chapter.”
This all depends on Pacific Rim Uprising being a hit, which is no sure thing considering the first movie didn't exactly set the world on fire. We'll find out when it opens March 23rd 2018.
