Pacific Rim: Uprising director Steven S. DeKnight has told RTÉ Entertainment that he knew he was stepping into "very large shoes" when he signed up to direct the sequel to Guillermo del Toro's 2013 fantasy movie.
The Spartacus creator and Marvel's Daredevil showrunner admits there was "a lot of adversity signing on to a project like this" but says being involved with a big Hollywood project was his long-term goal.
DeKnight said, "There was a lot of adversity signing on to a project like this especially because I’m a huge Guillermo del Toro fan."
"He’s been a huge inspiration to me for many years. To step into his very large shoes and take on a sequel to one of his movies was incredibly daunting and also a dream come true".
DeKnight admits he always wanted to make a big budget Hollywood movie but didn't think it would come around so fast.
"I was originally planning on directing a movie based on a script I had written that was a thriller with three people in a house. Obviously, much much smaller. Then this came up. I had always hoped to do a movie like this but maybe in ten or fifteen years once I had done several other smaller movies.
"So to just go straight into a giant movie like this was incredibly daunting, incredibly challenging, and there were days where I thought those three people in a house would have been nice right about now," he laughed.
DeKnight also praised the movie's original director and said del Toro couldn't have make the process more smoother for him.
"You spend five minutes with Guillermo and he is the warmest, sweetest, smartest guy you’ll ever meet. One of the biggest things I wanted to apply to this movie was his spirit and his enthusiasm.
"You see it in the behind-the-scenes for the first movie that he loves what he does. I mean he’s there every day and he’s like a kid in a candy store. That’s one of the things I really want to take and apply to this movie," he added.
Pacific Rim: Uprising hits cinemas on March 23.
