Guillermo Del Toro has confirmed that he has secretly been co-writing a sequel to Pacific Rim with Avengers writer Zek Penn, though the director admits that Legendary Pictures haven’t yet given the project a green light.

“I’m working very, very hard with Zak Penn. We’ve been working for a few months now in secret. We found a way to twist it around. [Pacific Rim co-writer] Travis Beacham was involved in the storyline and now I’m writing with Zak because Travis has become a TV mogul. I don’t have the money, but I’m proceeding like it is happening.”

Though Pacific Rim performed only adequately at the US box office, it managed to haul in over $400 million worldwide, mostly due to massive success in the Asian markets where watching Giant Robots fight Monsters is already a more firmly established national hobby.

Time will tell whether or not the studio will gamble on a second film and a possible franchise, swayed by the lure of merchandise profits and box office Yuan.