Take your first look at a suited-up Idris Elba in Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim

The first image from Guillermo Del Toro’s upcoming sci-fi action flick PACIFIC RIM has a geared-up Idris Elba looking especially bad ass and ready to kill some monsters.  Elba, along with Charlie Hunnam, Ron Perlman, Charlie Day, Clifton Collins, Jr., Rinko Kikuchi, and Heather Doerskin star as “Jaeger” pilots fighting a destructive monster invasion that kills off millions of people.

Suit Up:

I’ve been looking forward to seeing some images (and footage) from PACIFIC RIM as it’s one of my most anticipated films for 2013.  I’m excited to see Charlie Hunnam get the lead for a big-budge picture like this as he’s simply outstanding in the FX series Sons of Anarchy and an untapped resources for leading man status.  With Elba and Perlman in the mix it only sweetens the deal. 

Director Guillermo Del Toro expressed his happiness with the process of making the film by saying, “So much of the creation of the movie was having the best creative experience I’ve ever had in Hollywood.”  

In an interview with Total Film, Del Toro ellaborated on a few other details about the film, including the scale and the casting of Hunnam:

What sort of scale are you working on?
“When we’re talking about the physicality of the fight, we ended up building several blocks of Hong Kong. And literally demolished them. We built a building and then we took down the buildings.

We built command centres of the robots that were the size of the house. We started them on hydraulic rigs that shoot and elevated them and moved them round so you could really get a sense of the physical nature driving a robot like this.”

How did Charlie Hunnam get cast?
“The funny thing is Charlie was one of my only two choices for the prince of Hellboy II: The Golden Army. I met with him. He screen tested. I loved Charlie before Sons Of Anarchy. He always brought a certain honesty. He’s the kind of guy that women will love who guys won’t hate.

He’s the right side of honest and good looking that you don’t want to punch him in the face. You want to have a pint with the guy. You want to take him to the pub. There’s male bonding energy with this guy that I thought was perfect for the character.”

Here’s the synopsis:

When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes-a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi)-who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.

PACIFIC RIM is set to start laying the mechanized smack-down on July 12, 2013.