Smallscreen News

'Sons of Anarchy' star Charlie Hunnam for the lead in 'Pacific Rim'

By April MacIntyre May 10, 2011, 2:08 GMT

Reporting for new duty in September - Charlie Hunnam - "Sons of Anarchy" Panel - San Diego Convention Center - San Diego, CA, USA © Alan Hess / PR Photos

FX "Sons of Anarchy" star Charlie Hunnam has landed in a big blockbuster lead role.

British actor Hunnam, who plays Jax Teller on the biker drama set in the fictional town of Charming, California, is in talks to star in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim.

"Pacific Rim" is scheduled to begin production in September 2011 according to Production Weekly.  The movie is produced by Thomas Tull and Jon Jashni and the script is penned by Travis Beacham. Guillermo del Toro will direct.

The official synopsis is that in the future evil sea spawned creatures threaten the earth, forcing the planet to band together and use highly advanced technology to defeat the menace.

Synopsis From PW:

"The first is an alternate version of Earth in the near future, decades after a historic date in November 2012 when the first kaiju, a towering Godzilla-like beast, emerged from a hole in the Pacific Ocean and attacked the city of Osaka, Japan. The second is “The Anteverse,” another universe on the other side of that gaping portal, five miles below our ocean’s surface.

Since the first attack, the rim has been spitting out a variety of gigantic monsters at an increasing rate, which then stride out of the ocean and begin destroying sea-bordering cities, like Tokyo and Los Angeles. In order to combat these monstrous, otherworldly menaces, the military developed the “Jaeger” program, which trains teams of two pilots to jointly operate massive, building-sized mechanized suits of armor and high-tech weaponry.

The central character is Raleigh Antrobus, 23, a skilled Jaeger pilot still wrestling emotionally with the loss of his co-pilot and biological brother, Yance, during a mission a year earlier. The ordeal has wreaked havoc on his mind spirit, leaving him with ghostly nightmares of the battle from the shared “pons” experience. After the initial setup, the damaged hero is recruited to re-join the task force in Tokyo, where pilots are in demand, and team with a fellow “leftover,” 22-year-old female Japanese pilot Mako Mori. Naturally, the language barrier (among other things) presents an issue for the out-of-sync duo, meaning an even steeper learning curve for the unprecedented pairing."