This $2.5 Billion Kaiju Movie Franchise Proves How The Upcoming Pacific Rim Show Can Work

The Pacific Rim franchise has traversed several different forms of media, and the upcoming TV show set in that universe has high expectations thanks to a similar franchise proving the concept can work. From Legendary Entertainment, the Pacific Rim live-action TV show will be a prequel to the events of Guillermo del Toro’s 2013 kaiju classic. There are very few details available about the plot or any of the cast and crew who will be involved with its production, but the show will likely feature the early days of the “Kaiju War” depicted in the original movie.

As is often the case when a movie franchise moves into the world of streaming television, there is some wariness among fans of the franchise regarding the quality of the TV show. The Pacific Rim franchise has been highlighted by battles between incredible monsters and massive robots, and the hesitance is that by transitioning to the small screen, the franchise could lose the elements that make it great. Fortunately, there is already evidence that a Pacific Rim TV show can not only work, but can generate legitimate acclaim.

The Monsterverse’s First Live-Action Show Proves Pacific Rim’s TV Prequel Can Work

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters was embraced by both fans and critics

Legendary Entertainment has already proven that a kaiju-based TV show can work; the Monsterverse’s companion show Monarch: Legacy of Monsters was a streaming hit for Apple TV+. Monarch had plenty of Titan action to keep the spirit of the Monsterverse alive, and included both brand-new creatures and appearances from the Alpha Titans Godzilla and Kong themselves. It also managed to introduce an entirely new location for the Monsterverse known as Axis Mundi, a place between the surface world and the Titan haven Hollow Earth where time works differently and monsters roam freely.

The success of Monarch is direct proof that Pacific Rim’s TV prequel can be a success, especially given how massive the existing Pacific Rim fanbase already is. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters exists in a world that was already well-established and built out by the time the show debuted, so it was able to focus on parts of the world and timeline that had previously gone unexplored. The Pacific Rim prequel show has that same opportunity, as the lore of the universe has already been well-established in Pacific Rim, Pacific Rim: Uprising, and the Netflix animated show Pacific Rim: The Black.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Is Exactly What The Pacific Rim TV Show Should Be Like

It focused on the human element of the story

The major downside to a franchise like the Monsterverse or Pacific Rim moving to the TV format is that, due to budget constraints, it’s impossible to maintain the screen time ratio for the monsters/robots that a movie would typically have. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters solved that problem by focusing on the human side of the explosion of Titan activity in the world, and establishing characters that the audience could genuinely care about. The show also greatly expanded the world of the Monsterverse with the introduction of Axis Mundi, which allowed for time jumps and an intriguing non-Titan plot to follow.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
actually boasts the highest Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score of any movie or show in Legendary’s Monsterverse.

Pacific Rim’s TV prequel show can execute something similar, and focus on the human fallout from the early days of the Kaiju War. Exploring the ground-level consequences of “kaiju blue”, the toxic blood spilled by defeated kaijus, the kaiju body part black market, and the early days of the Jaegar program’s development could all be viable human-based stories that the prequel could explore. All those plots would also guarantee that there are still appearances from kaiju, Jaegars, or both, ensuring that the Pacific Rim prequel show doesn’t lose the best element from the movies.