The major new Hollywood feature film, Pacific Rim:Maelstrom, sequel to the global box office success, Pacific Rim, is currently filming in Sydney.
The NSW Government lured the production to Sydney with an incentive from the Government’s new $20m Made In NSW Fund.
Pacific Rim: Maelstrom will spend more than $54 million in NSW during production and employ around 400 NSW crew as well as several local actors.
NSW won over the producers and director because of the iconic beauty of Sydney, the incredible range of locations on offer, the depth of highly experienced local cast and crew, Fox Studios’ stage capability and support facilities and NSW’s film-friendly weather.
Final locations for the film will capture globally recognisable Sydney sites including beaches, Sydney Harbour and the CBD, as well as locations in Western Sydney. Filming will also take place at Fox Studios.
Following such successes as The Wolverine and The Matrix, Pacific Rim: Maelstrom will highlight the capacity for NSW’s brilliant technical crews to transform the city into a futuristic vision.
The production has been based in Sydney since late August and will continue filming until February 2017. There will be additional filming in Queensland and in China.
The film is produced by Legendary Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Wanda Group, who produced Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken (which also filmed in NSW), as well as blockbuster hits such as Godzilla, Interstellar, Jurassic World, Man of Steel, The Hangover, Dark Knight and Superman Returns. The film is directed by Steve DeKnight and will star John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Rinko Kikeuchi and Charlie Day.
The film picks up 10 years after the Kaiju War, with Stacker Pentecost’s son Jake making a living in obscurity, selling Jaeger parts on the black market. However, Mako Mori tracks him to the Santa Monica slums and enlists his help in training The Hopefuls, a program to train the next generation of Jaeger Pilots at the Shatterdome in China. When a new Drone Jaeger program goes rogue and opens up breaches around the world, Jake must assume his role as a leader and stop the Kaiju from ending the world.
The $20m Made in NSW Fund also secured the production of Jackie Chan’s Bleeding Steel for Sydney and the international feature film Peter Rabbit, which will star Rose Byrne and the voice of James Corden.
Image: Pacific Rim (2013)