Even a $176 Million Budget Couldn’t Save This Franchise-Ending Sci-Fi Bomb Heading to Hulu

3 weeks ago 12

JING Tian standing in a control room in Pacific Rim Uprising

Published Mar 28, 2026, 6:45 PM EDT

Rohan Naahar is a Weekend News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he'll watch anything once.

He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

Heaps of movies were caught unawares when China began imposing restrictions on the number of foreign titles it would allow to be screened in its expansive network of theaters. Hollywood had begun to rely on Chinese audiences to push big-budget, visual effects-heavy tentpoles to success. Movies like Transformers: Age of Extinction and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story openly pandered to Chinese audiences by filming sequences set in or around the mainland, and featuring Chinese stars. Both those films were able to pass the coveted $1 billion milestone at the worldwide box office. But another in their ranks failed to deliver the same kind of impact. The movie in question served as a sequel to a sci-fi epic that was virtually saved by Chinese audiences after underperforming in domestic theaters.

The sequel was green-lit primarily because the studio felt that it could rely on the same audiences to return. The first film, directed by a multiple-Oscar-winner, grossed $101 million in North America and $136 million in China. Similarly, the fantasy film Warcraft grossed only $47 million in North America and $225 million in China, although it never received a sequel. This was perhaps because the Chinese market had already started to dwindle for Hollywood projects. There was simply no going back after the sci-fi sequel we're talking about underperformed.

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Here's Where You Can Watch the Sci-Fi Epic

The movie in question is Pacific Rim Uprising, a sequel to Guillermo del Toro's 2013 tentpole Pacific Rim, which made $411 million worldwide against a reported budget of $190 million. The first movie was del Toro's ode to anime such as Neon Genesis Evangelion and the old-school Toho Godzilla movies. The sequel wasn't directed by him; it marked the feature directorial debut of Steven S. DeKnight, who was best known for developing Netflix's Daredevil series and for creating the Spartacus franchise on Starz. Starring John Boyega, Cailee Spaeny, and Scott Eastwood, Pacific Rim Uprising also features Chinese actors Jing Tian and Zhang Jin. It grossed only $290 million worldwide against a reported budget of $176 million, and earned mediocre reviews. Pacific Rim Uprising currently holds a 42% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, compared to the 72% score of the first film. Pacific Rim Uprising will land on Hulu on April 1, where audiences can decide for themselves if it was worth the massive investment. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.