Sci-Fi Summer! A few details about this new movie are out, although most of them seem to say that director Guillermo del Toro is basically out to make his own Star Wars. While George Lucas created a sci-fi space fantasy pastiche incorporating thousands of years of myths and about 50 years of cinema, Pacific Rim seems to stir the pot of modern pop culture featuring things young adults and teenagers likely love, like giant robots and city-destroying monsters.
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Not many toys were shown, so let's just ramble about who's in it. Charlie Day (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia), Ellen McClain (as a computer, sounding a heck of a lot like her role of GLaDOS from Portal), Rob Perlman (everything), and Idris Elba (lots of stuff, recently Prometheus.) The basic nuts and bolts of Godzilla vs. Gundam is a solid foundation on which to build a toy line and a franchise, although I would speculate that the merchandising isn't going to be kid-driven for this one... much like the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, it looks to be driven by the adult collector market so far.
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Sideshow Collectibles and NECA are hard at work on stuff for this movie, but none of the big toy players are aiming anything at a wider market just yet. If it does well, I expect many more, lower-end items next year or, failing that, lots of cool stuff in Japan.
Also shown was a Jaden Smith figure from After Earth, a futuristic movie where Will Smith is fighting off lions and stuff with his kid for a bit. Since only Jaden was shown I'll go out on a limb and assume the M. Night Shyamalan twist is that Will is dead in the first half hour.
--Adam Pawlus
