While Pacific Rim: Uprising will see the return of a number of familiar faces from the 2013 sci-fi blockbuster, one person who is sitting out the sequel is Charlie Hunnam, and during an interview with Den of Geek to promote his new film The Lost City of Z, the British actor has revealed why he won’t be back as Raleigh Becket.
“There was a huge scheduling conflict, I was already really, really invested in doing Papillion.,” said Hunnam. “What happened was Legendary was sold to Wanda, which is the big Chinese corporation, and Pacific Rim, although it underperformed in other territories in the world, was an enormous success in China, all of a sudden, it became their primary focus to make this and they wanted to do it very, very rapidly… I think their schedule subsequently changed, and I might have been able to do both, but at that time, they were writing the script and they needed to know, was I in or was I out?”
SEE ALSO: Guillermo del Toro on why he didn’t return for Pacific Rim: Uprising
Hunnam went on to reveal that his had a contractual obligation to appear, but Legendary’s Thomas Tull released him from his obligations: “He was like, ‘Dude, you were going to do that other film and that’s where your heart is. I don’t want you being on set if you’re not going to be happy, so go do the other film,’ which was ludicrously generous of him. But that’s just the type of man he is.”
Pacific Rim: Uprising sees Steven S. DeKnight (Daredevil) directing a cast that includes John Boyega (Star Wars: The Last Jedi), Adria Arjona (True Detective), Scott Eastwood (Suicide Squad), Cailee Spaeny (Counting to 1,000), Levi Meaden (Aftermath), Karan Brar (Diary of a Wimpy Kid), Nick Tarabay (Spartacus), Zhang Jin (Ip Man 3), Mackenyu (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure) and Jing Tian (Police Story: Lockdown), while Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day and Burn Gorman reprise their roles from the first film. It is set for release on February 23rd 2018.
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Originally published April 16, 2017. Updated November 21, 2019.
