Sad news, Pacific Rim fans: The incredibly named Raleigh Becket is not in Pacific Rim 2: Kaiju Boogaloo. Charlie Hunnam has confirmed that he — and therefore, presumably, severalfold shots of his unclothed torso — will not be in the sequel.
It’s long been assumed that a follow-up to Pacific Rim would continue the adventures of Beckett and Mako Mori (played by Rinko Kikuchi), but speaking to Yahoo at Comic-Con, Hunnam actually revealed that he isn’t going to be in the sequel after all.
He was, at one point, heavily involved — but scheduling conflicts lead to the actor being forced to pull out early on in production, and by the time things were sorted out, he wasn’t available to make a return.
While it’s sad news that the main character of the first film won’t be involved in the sequel, hopefully Hunnam’s departure (which, it seems like required a considerable re-write of the script considering there was a version in which Raleigh was a main character) doesn’t mean there’s no chance of Kikuchi returning to reprise her role as Mako. At least we’re getting John Boyega as the next generation of Jaeger pilot instead.