After the departure of Guillermo del Toro as director and the hiring of Stephen DeKnight to take his place, fans have been hanging on every new piece of news regarding the upcoming sequel to 2013's cult favorite monster mash. Now, The Hollywood Reporter is exclusively announcing that 'Pacific Rim 2' has found a new screenwriter.
Derek Connolly has been hired to take over the reigns from previous draft's writers del Toro himself, Zak Penn, and John Spaihts. He is mostly known for his work as a co-writer on 'Jurassic World' along with director Colin Treverrow and has apparently impressed Legendary with his work on 'Kong: Skull Island' as well. He got his break in the industry co-writing Treverrow's first film 'Safety Not Guarenteed,' and has recently worked on 'Jurassic World 2' and a sci-fi drama for Dreamworks titled 'Intelligent Life.'
Plot details for the 'Pacific Rim' follow-up are scarce, but rumor is that it will take place years after the original with the giant pilot-controlled mechs called Jaegers being much more commonplace. Similar to the flashback scenes in the first film when they first started successfully pushing back the Kaiju threat. It is unclear whether this newly hired scribe is being brought in for revisions or a page one rewrite.
Connolly is definitely making a name for himself in the giant monster genre, and I'm personally looking forward to pretty much every film he's been a part of at this point. Hopefully the studio's confidence in him is proof that he's knocking it out of the park.