Charlie Hunnam finally revealed why he didn't reprise his role as Raleigh Becket in 2018's Pacific Rim Uprising.

"There were business elements of it that required them to go into production very quickly," Hunnam said in a new interview with Collider. "Legendary had just been acquired by Wanda out of China, and they wanted that film made very quickly and I wasn’t available."

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The actor went on to explain that he was involved in sequel conversations when Guillermo del Toro was still tied to the project but had booked other projects by the time they decided to make the film with a different director.

"That's just what happens. I didn't deeply lament it," Hunnam added. "I'd been working in long-form storytelling for a while and we'd already done one Pacific Rim, so I felt like, 'Go with God. Go do your thing." Hunnam further shared that he hasn't actually watched the sequel since its release, so he hasn't had the opportunity to think about whether he regretted his decision.

Pacific Rim Uprising starred John Boyega as Jake Pentecost, a once-promising Jaeger pilot who abandoned his training only to become caught up in a criminal underworld. When an even more unstoppable force threatens to bring the world to its knees, Jake is given one last chance by his estranged sister Mako Mori and to live up to his late father's legacy. Directed by Steven S. DeKnight, the sequel also starred Scott Eastwood, Charlie Day and Rinko Kikuchi.

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In the same interview Hunnam revealed that "he didn’t even know" there was also a new Pacific Rim anime series set to premiere on Netflix in 2021, explaining, "When I didn’t do the sequel, I think that probably closed that chapter for me."

It was previously revealed that Pacific Rim: The Black will take place in the same continuity as both live-action films and will involve the evacuation of Australia at a time when humans thought they'd already beaten the kaiju. The series will be run by Craig Kyle and Greg Johnson and will follow two siblings piloting an old Jaeger across "a continent of danger."

Hunnam most recently starred in Max Winkler's boxing drama Jungleland. Hunnam and Jack O'Connell portray brothers Stan and Lion Kaminski, respectively, who are forced to risk it all in a bare-knuckle boxing tournament in order to pay back a ruthless crime boss.

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Source: Collider