Mexican director Guillermo del Toro is writing a script for a sequel to 2013's "Pacific Rim," but there's no guarantee moviegoers will ever see the story on the big screen.

During the Austin Television Festival (where del Toro was promoting his FX series "The Strain"), the director revealed that he has recruited the help of Zak Penn, screenplay writer of such action films as "Elektra," "X-Men: The Last Stand" and "The Incredible Hulk."

"I'm working very, very hard with Zak Penn," del Toro said in an interview with BuzzFeed. "We've been working for a few months now in secret. We found a way to twist it around."

Del Toro previously worked with Travis Beacham, co-writer of "Pacific Rim," on the sequel, but Beacham is now writing Fox's "Hieroglyph" and is busy being a "TV mogul," del Toro said.

There is just one hitch, however: Legendary Pictures has not signed on to produce the film yet.

"I don't have the money, but I'm proceeding like it is happening," del Toro explained laughing.

The director isn't skimping on the details either. Del Toro has already created parts for Charlie Hunnam and Rinko Kikuchi, who would reprise their lead roles as Raleigh Becket and Mako Mori, respectively. He added that he is taking his own route with the film, forgoing suggestions of doing a "Pacific Rim" prequel.

"Some people were wondering if we were going to do the prequel," del Toro explained. "I was never interested in doing that first wave of invasion. I'm going for very new, very crazy ideas on the second one, which are very different from the first one, but you will get really great spectacle."

According to BuzzFeed, the first "Pacific Rim" grossed $101.8 million in the United States, $111.9 million in China and an impressive $309.2 million internationally. So will Legendary Pictures come around and agree to make del Toro's script?

"With the amount of money that we did on 'Pacific Rim,' over $400 million, it didn't quite hit our expectations, but it did better than a lot of other films," Thomas Tull, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Legendary Pictures, told iamROGUE in mid-May. "If there's another great story to tell with Guillermo then we're all over it because we think it's really hard to create one of these things from scratch. The movie did really well on home video and merchandise, and it certainly has a big international following. We're not just going to do 'Pacific Rim 2' just to do it. Right now we're talking to Guillermo del Toro. If we can crack the story, we all think it's great, and it's him at the helm, then fantastic, but right now there's nothing going on officially to proclaim."

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Follow Scharon Harding on Twitter: @ScharHar.

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