Fans were super excited when Guillermo del Toro announced that there would be a Pacific Rim 2. Del Toro, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, has let us in on what kinds of ideas he and screenwriting partners Zak Penn and Travis Beacham have been kicking around.

"I said to Zak, let’s keep kicking ideas till we find one that really, really turns the first movie on its ear, so to speak. It was hard to create a world that did not come from a comic book, that had its own mythology, so we had to sacrifice many aspects to be able to cram everything in the first movie,” del Toro said.

Specifically he mentioned the mind-blowing plot tool used in the first Pacific Rim.

“Namely, for example, The Drift, which was an interesting concept. [Then there was] this portal that ripped a hole into the fabric of our universe, what were the tools they were using? And we came up with a really, really interesting idea. I don’t want to spoil it, but I think at the end of the second movie, people will find out that the two movies stand on their own. They’re very different from each other, although hopefully bringing the same joyful giant spectacle. But the tenor of the two movies will be quite different."

Del Toro also promised, as any sequel should, that Pacific Rim 2 will introduce a wider array of characters.

"I’m hoping to bring the same idea I had in the first movie -- that was to make it multicultural and humanistic as much as possible, to make characters from many nationalities or gender, to make them equal in the scope of the adventure, in the day-to-day of the adventure,” he said.

“We’re bringing a few characters that are new and hopefully doing good work managing those that survived the first movie."

Look for Pacific Rim 2 April 7, 2017, and until then, watch Pacific Rim online to catch up on del Toro’s passion project.