Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Charlie Hunnam, best known for playing biker Jax Teller in Kurt Sutter’s superb FX series Sons of Anarchy, is negotiating to star in Pacific Rim for director Guillermo del Toro. The Legendary Pictures film, scripted by Travis Beacham, is set in a future where giant malevolent creatures threaten to destroy the earth, city by city. To combat its annihilation, the planet must band together and use highly advanced weapons technology to eradicate the growing threat. So once again, Hunnam will be kicking some ass.

Pacific Rim will be produced by Legendary’s Thomas Tull and Jon Jashni, along with del Toro. Callum Greene will executive produce. Legendary’s running point on the picture, but it will be done through the company’s overall agreement with Warner Bros. Pacific Rim surfaced as an important movie when del Toro focused his attention on it as his next film after Universal halted At the Mountains of Madness, which del Toro was going to make with Tom Cruise.

Hunnam just starred in the drama The Ledge, which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, and he just completed in Blackbird opposite Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde. Hunnam’s repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners.