Guillermo del Toro is a director who constantly has several projects on the table, and while that may seem odd to some, it’s actually a smart approach. Take Martin Scorsese, for instance, who always has many projects under consideration. Del Toro currently has a handful of films in the works, but only a couple that are moving forward for the time being: Pacific Rim 2 and his long-gestating Haunted Mansion.

After the TCA panel for the del Toro-produced The Strain, Collider caught up with the director to get some updates on various projects. Last fall, we learned that Charlie Day and Burn Gorman will reprise their Pacific Rim roles for Pacific Rim 2, and when asked if that early announcement meant that the duo would be leading the sequel, del Toro had this to offer:

No, no, no, Charlie Day has a great part but so does Charlie Hunnam. I think that everybody or most everybody that survived is back. The rest we killed. We killed half the cast.

Hunnam recently criticized Pacific Rim for having too much CG and not focusing enough on the human characters, adding that he hopes the sequel features less robots and more humanity. Clearly he does not understand the concept of Pacific Rim.

As for The Haunted Mansion — last we heard, Ryan Gosling was in talks to star in the film, which del Toro has been heavily teasing for years. The director is a huge fan of Disney’s classic attraction, and del Toro’s upcoming Crimson Peak seems like it could inspire Disney to really get moving on The Haunted Mansion. Del Toro gave a vague update on that film, while also explaining why he always seems to have so many projects up in the air at once:

All you can do is develop the screenplays, send them in, get a reaction, get the budget, agree or disagree on budget and so forth. Every project goes through the same thing. People say why do you have five [movies in development]? I have five because one happens. Whenever I have dedicated myself to a single project for any length of time, I end up having three, four years where I don’t shoot. It’s happened twice already, so I live in a life of realities. I have to have these projects alive to hope and pray that one of them happen.

The director also once again shot down any hope of Hellboy 3 — although the fans seem to want it and Ron Perlman is game to return (for the fans’ sake and not his own, he says), it’s just not a realistic idea.

Pacific Rim 2 is currently aiming for a August 4, 2017 release date.

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