Led by China's $64.9 million USD,
Pacific Rim: Uprising dethroned Black Panther at the box office and became the #1 movie in the world over this past weekend with a box office gross of $150.5M USD. The film actually exceeds expectations, grossing $28M to slightly surpass initial tracking that estimated the Steven S. DeKnight
film would take in $25M in North America.
However, Steven Speilberg's
Ready Player One looms large with a March 29th release. With Pacific Rim: Uprising currently "rotten" on Rotten Tomatoes and having a pedestrian Metacritic score of 44, box office experts are expecting a fairly significant dropoff in week 2. Still, the film has an estimated production budget of $150 million USD and has already equaled that figure. Plus, Legendary Pictures is owned by Wanda, a Chinese company, which means the studio won't be subjected to the usual lesser percentage take on films released there.
John Boyega (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) stars as the rebellious Jake Pentecost, a once-promising Jaeger pilot whose legendary father gave his life to secure humanity’s victory against the monstrous “Kaiju.” Jake has since abandoned his training only to become caught up in a criminal underworld. But when an even more unstoppable threat is unleashed to tear through our cities and bring the world to its knees, he is given one last chance to live up to his father’s legacy by his estranged sister, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi)—who is leading a brave new generation of pilots that have grown up in the shadow of war. As they seek justice for the fallen, their only hope is to unite together in a global uprising against the forces of extinction.
Jake is joined by gifted rival pilot Lambert (The Fate of the Furious’ Scott Eastwood) and 15-year-old Jaeger hacker Amara (newcomer Cailee Spaeny), as the heroes of the PPDC become the only family he has left. Rising up to become the most powerful defense force to ever walk the earth, they will set course for a spectacular all-new adventure on a towering scale.
Pacific Rim Uprising is directed by Steven S. DeKnight (Netflix’s Daredevil, STARZ’s Spartacus) and also stars Jing Tian, Burn Gorman, Adria Arjona and Charlie Day.