Does the Ending of 'Pacific Rim Uprising' Set Up a Sequel?

Despite what he said in his rousing speech, Idris Elba’s character in Pacific Rim didn’t cancel the apocalypse so much as it postponed it. The sequel, Pacific Rim Uprising, introduces a new kind of Kaiju threat for our heroic Jaeger pilots to fight. Do they finish the job for good this time, or does the ending of Uprising set up a sequel?

This post contains spoilers for *Pacific Rim Uprising.

By the end of Pacific Rim Uprising, Jake Pentecost (John Boyega) and Amara Namani (Cailee Spaeny) put a stop to a truly giant Kaiju that wants to scale Mount Fuji and set off a world-ending chain of volcanic reactions. The Precursors — the alien race who was sending the Kaiju to Earth from another dimension — have been foiled again, but, they had somebody working on the other side who helped make this latest invasion possible.

We’ll avoid revealing who or what was actually working for the Precursors the whole time for the sake of preserving Uprising’s big twist, but the guilty party gets captured during the big showdown. Then Jake confronts this person during the post-credits scene.

The traitor warns that the Precursors won’t stop their attempts to invade Earth, but Jake has a different idea. Next time, he declares, we’re taking the fight to them.

It’s a pretty natural place for a sequel to go, as it’s potentially more interesting than just having the humans repel another invasion again. Having said that, do we really want to spend an entire movie in the purple-pink, womb-like dimension the Precursors hail from, as seen in the end of the first Pacific Rim?

Whether or not Jake and Co. will ever get a chance to go on the offensive is unknown at this point. A third movie has yet to be officially confirmed, though Uprising director Steven S. DeKnight and franchise creator Guillermo del Toro both have ideas for a Pacific Rim 3.

In order for that to happen, though, Uprising will have to do well on the box office — and potentially not the American box office. The first film more or less flopped in the U.S. despite a passionate fan base, but it did gangbusters overseas, especially in China. A full 75 percent of Pacific Rim’s earnings came from outside of the U.S. and Canada, as it raked up $309 million internationally. Of that figure, $112 million came from China alone. Uprising might play even more to a Chinese audience than the first one did, so it’s possible that Pacific Rim will live on. It’s just that a big box office gross is as much of a challenge as a big Kaiju.

Pacific Rim Uprising opens on March 23.

Now Read: Inverse’s Review of Pacific Rim Uprising.