Tom Cruise nearly starred in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim and would have had a karaoke scene within the movie.
Speaking with Collider during a 10th-anniversary screening of Pacific Rim in IMAX 3D, del Toro said that Cruise was nearly cast in the role played by Idris Elba.
“Oh yeah,” del Toro said. “The two models for Pacific Rim, the two models for the screenplay, are Hoosiers with Gene Hackman and Top Gun. So, the part that Idris Elba plays, Tom Cruise was gonna do it, and I even had a karaoke [scene]. The deal couldn’t be made. He wanted to do it. We were developing stuff, and he couldn’t do it. I thought, ‘You know what? Let’s go with Idris Elba then. He’s a god.’ Obviously, I had to rewrite it for that, but I thought it was gonna be an interesting analog to do that. It would have been a lot of fun.”
Released in 2013, Pacific Rim also starred Charlie Hunnam, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Ron Perlman, Robert Kazinsky, and Max Martini. Bringing in $441 million at the worldwide box office, it spawned a sequel, Pacific Rim: Uprising, and a Netflix anime series, Pacific Rim: The Black.
Guillermo del Toro has developed other movies with Tom Cruise
Del Toro also told Collider he’s developed a total of three films with the Mission: Impossible star, though their collaborations have always fallen through in the past.
“I have developed three movies with Cruise, and none of the three times we have worked, but we have had quite a laugh, you know?” del Toro said. “I like it. My life is so weird. I’m like Forrest fucking Gump. All of a sudden, I’m in places that I don’t know how it happened, but I go, ‘Eh, I like it.’ [Laughs] Honestly, I’m very grateful.”
