Just recently Universal Studios stupidly backed out of making At the Mountains of Madness, the massive R-rated horror movie set to be directed by Guillermo del Toro and produced by James Cameron that had fans salivating joyfully, with many wondering if Comcast’s purchase of the company from General Electric was to blame for the decision.

While we impatiently wait to see if another studio has the testicular fortitude to take on such an ambitious project that moviegoers actually want to see (or if Universal will even allow it), del Toro has moved on to Pacific Rim, another monster movie with a PG-13 rating that movie studios have no problem swallowing. And though not as exciting as At the Mountains of Madness, this is still Guillermo del Toro, so we’ll take what we can get from the director — one of the top talents working today — who hasn’t had a new movie of his own making since 2008′s Hellboy: The Golden Army.

To get things rolling, today comes the first casting news for Pacific Rim with the announcement that Charlie Hunnam has entered into negotiations for a role in the movie.

Hunnam is a British actor who is of course best known as one of the leads in the hit FX series, Sons of Anarchy, but he’s also appeared in a number of other notable titles such as Nicholas Nickleby, Undeclared, Cold Mountain, Green Street Hooligans, and Children of Men.

No real details of who Hunnam will play are known, though it is being said that it would be the lead role, a pilot of giant robots that we’ve built to combat the dangerous beasties who are attacking locations near the Pacific ocean. More detailed descriptions of the characters and the movie itself should be known in the very near future as more castings are announced and filming eventually begins.

Once upon a time (back in 2009), Hunnam was also developing a movie about Vlad the Impaler — the inspiration for the father to all vampires, Dracula — for Summit Entertainment, though it’s unclear where that project currently stands.

[Source: Deadline, Heat Vision]