The first installment in the Pacific Rim saga, Pacific Rim is a 2013 American science fiction monster film directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Robert Kazinsky, Max Martini, Ron Perlman, and Mana Ashida. Travis Beacham and del Toro wrote the screenplay based on a narrative that Beacham had written. The movie is set in the future, when enormous sea monsters known as “Kaiju” have broken out of an interdimensional vortex on the Pacific Ocean’s floor and are waging war on Earth.Humanity joins forces to develop the Jaegers, massive humanoid mechas driven by two co-pilots connected by a mental link, in order to battle the monsters. With an emphasis on the latter stages of the conflict, the narrative centers on Raleigh Becket, a disgraced Jaeger pilot who is summoned out of retirement to join forces with rookie pilot Mako Mori in a desperate attempt to take down the Kaiju.

Principal photography began on November 14, 2011, in Toronto and ended in April 2012. The film was produced by Legendary Pictures and distributed by Warner Bros. It was released on July 12, 2013, in 3D and IMAX 3D, receiving generally positive reviews; the visual effects, action sequences, and nostalgic style were highly praised. While it underperformed at the box office in the United States, it was highly successful in other markets, thus labeling the film as a box office success. It earned a worldwide total of more than $411 million—earning $114 million in China alone, its largest market—becoming Del Toro’s most commercially successful film to date. The film is regarded as an homage to kaiju, mecha, and anime media. A sequel titled Pacific Rim: Uprising was released on March 23, 2018, with Universal Pictures distributing.