Hey, so all of a sudden Idris Elba is a big deal in Hollywood, huh? After years of being known for his TV work on "The Wire" and "Luther," it seems like the very respected English actor is finally going to graduate from starring in movies like "Obsessed" and playing bit parts in "Thor" to being a lead in significant films in his own right. He'll be in Ridley Scott's "Prometheus," and today came word that he's going to be one of the stars of "Pacific Rim," Guillermo del Toro's sci-fi event movie.

As you may remember, "Pacific Rim" is the very complicated-sounding project about parallel universes, Godzilla-like monsters, and human pilots who control massive robots that fight the monsters. Elba will play a character named Sensi, a role that Deadline says was "originally developed for Tom Cruise," which is industry-speak for "See what an impressive role this is?"

That's great news for fans of del Toro, monsters and robots, but Elba supporters will probably be a bit bummed that his commitment to "Pacific Rim" just about officially means he's not going to play the title character in "Django Unchained," Quentin Tarantino's film about a former slave trying to rescue his wife.

At the end of last month, Elba tweeted that he was "meeting a very controversial director for a very controversial part," which made everybody assume he meant playing Django. When news started breaking a few days later that he was being courted for "Pacific Rim," some wondered if that was what he'd been referring to all along. That seems pretty unlikely: How is del Toro "controversial"? But with "Pacific Rim" set to shoot in November, there wouldn't be enough time for him to do "Django" as well. (Besides, everybody thinks Jamie Foxx will be getting that role now.) But if some bloggers' comments are right, Django really isn't the main character in Tarantino's script, whereas "Pacific Rim" will give Elba a much meatier role. He's probably just glad not to be doing any more movies with Beyonce.

You need to be a member of Blacksciencefictionsociety to add comments!

Join Blacksciencefictionsociety

Email me when people reply –