Jing Tian is already a star in her native country of China after a scintillating 8 year career. In 2016, the Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group purchased controlling interest from Thomas Tull and appear determined to make Tian a star in the U.S. as she's starring in Kong: Skull Island, The Great Wall and now Pacific Rim 2. She'll co-star with John Boyega, Cailee Spaeny and Scott Eastwood. Steven S. DeKnight will be replacing Guillermo del Toro as director on the sequel.
ABOUT PACIFIC RIM 2
Though Pacific Rim 2 was initially removed from Universal's release schedule, development on the project continued and the film received a new release date of February 23, 2018. Guillermo del Toro will step aside to let Daredevil showrunner Steven S. DeKnight sit in the director's chair and screenwriter Travis Beacham has made room for Zak Penn, Jon Spaihts and Derek Connollt (Jurassic World, Kong: Skull Island) to write the sequel.
Initally, del Toro's ambitious plans for his budding franchise included comic books, anime and video game tie-ins. A single-player fighting game was released to generally negative reviews for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 in 2013. A prequel graphic novel Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero was written by Beacham and released in 2013.