A lot of fans were disappointed when Raleigh Becket, played by Charlie Hunnam, did not appear for Pacific Rim: Uprising. While it might not have done much to improve the sequel overall, it might’ve made it more tolerable. Hence, probably why Charlie Hunnam chose to speak of it recently.
In a recent interview with Collider to promote his new movie Jungleland, Charlie Hunnam also decided to speak up about Pacific Rim. Specifically, Hunnam revealed why he wasn’t in the sequel Pacific Rim: Uprising. When asked if he was ever going to be in the sequel, Hunnam replied:
Yeah. A lot of time went by between us doing [the sequel]. Certainly, when Guillermo was talking about it, then yeah, definitely, I was a part of that conversation and I think that his vision for it included me. But by the time they circled around and decided that they were gonna make it with a different director, we had a conversation about it but I was booked up. There were business elements of it that required them to go into production very quickly. Legendary had just been acquired by Wanda out of China, and they wanted that film made very quickly and I wasn’t available. That’s just what happens.
So yeah, apparently Charlie Hunnam’s schedule was just full when Legendary decided to do Pacific Rim: Uprising. They just really wanted to get the movie out now, and they didn’t want to wait for Hunnam’s schedule to clear up. Thus, they wrote Raleigh Becket out of the sequel. That was the end of him as far as Pacific Rim went.
Charlie Hunnam: Outrun by Scheduling
Surprisingly, Charlie Hunnam wasn’t too broken up about not being in Pacific Rim: Uprising. At least, he didn’t seem to think much of it in the interview. According to Hunnam:
I didn’t deeply lament it. I’d been working in long-form storytelling for a while and we’d already done one Pacific Rim, so I felt like, “Go with God. Go do your thing.” I actually haven’t seen the sequel, so I didn’t ever give myself an opportunity to really think about whether I regret that decision or not.
Funnily enough, previously in the interview, Collider asked Hunnam about the upcoming 2021 Pacific Rim anime and whether Netflix reached out to him. To our surprise, Hunnam replied that he hadn’t even known about it. No one even asked him about it. Hunnam supposed that his nonappearance in Uprising basically closed the chapter for him as far as Pacific Rim went. Given that angle, it’s not hard to see why.
Conclusion
Charlie Hunnam didn’t appear in Pacific Rim: Uprising due to scheduling conflicts. He also wasn’t broken up much over not actually appearing in it. It appears that Hunnam has just moved on from fighting kaiju in giant robots. We probably shouldn’t expect him to reappear for any Pacific Rim project anytime soon.
Source: Collider
