Fans looking forward to returning to the world of Kaijus and giant robots will have to wait. Multiple sources are telling me that Guillermo del Toro's sequel to "Pacific Rim" is getting a delay.

Originally slated to shoot in Toronto in November of this year, we're now being told that the production for "Pacific Rim: Maelstrom" has been delayed until 2016--what month specifically, we don't know. The reason for the delay is also unknown at this time, but there's a good chance this will negatively affect the release date, which is currently set for August 4, 2017.

I have reached out to Legendary Pictures for a comment and they were not allowed to speak about it at the moment.

"Pacific Rim: Maelstrom" was set to place a few years after the first film, it was not an immediate follow-up.

Legendary wanted to produce a sequel to del Toro's Pacific Rim, which was made under the Warners deal and turned into one of those films that grosses a lot ($411 million worldwide) while being so costly that a follow-up isn't a sure thing. Sources say Legendary liked that the original performed exceptionally well in China, where the company is heavily invested, but for now the project — which had been ramping up to make a release date in August 2017 — has been halted indefinitely and will be pushed back (if it gets made at all).

Fans of skyscraper-size biped tank-robots received devastating news this week, with The Hollywood Reporter claiming that Universal had delayed the sequel to Pacific Rim indefinitely. The sequel — which had the working title Pacific Rim: Maelstrom, even though Maelstrom: A Pacific Rim Story would be trendier — was pegged by THR as the victim of a larger shakeup involving the Godzilla and King Kong franchises (to say nothing of the the Godzilla-sized egos behind-the-scenes.) Pacific Rim just barely squeaked over $100 million domestically, but it made over $400 million in total global profits and grossed $111 million in China alone. Those are either incredible numbers or mildly unimpressive numbers, depending on how important Hollywood thinks China is this week.

But at least one person thinks the Pacific Rim sequel is still happening. “We are still turning in a screenplay and a budget in three weeks,” writer-director Guillermo Del Toro tells EW. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s not gone. We’re still on it.”

Del Toro says the film’s delay is only temporary. “It moved further,” he says. “I may do another movie in the middle.”

Del Toro is no stranger to long-delayed passion-project blockbusters. “I can tell you this, if I was a billionaire, I would definitely do Hellboy 3, Pacific Rim 2, and At the Mountains of Madness.” He laughs. “And I would quickly become a millionaire.”

Since Pacific Rim is a film about giant god-creatures battling like natural disasters through cityscapes, and since this all began when the King Kong franchise moved to Warner Bros to set up a King Kong/Godzilla showdown film, we felt it mandatory to ask Del Toro if he had a favorite in a Kong vs. Godzilla showdown. “Even when I was a 10-year-old geek, I never engaged in those things,” he said. “I would like them both to win, and come over to my house for dinner.”