Just one week after newcomer Cailee Spaeny signed on to play the female lead in Pacific Rim 2, the highly-anticipated sequel has brought on Ting Jian. This report confirms that production is scheduled to begin this November in Australia. Legendary has already set a February 23, 2018 release date for the sci-fi thriller.

Variety broke the news of Ting Jian's casting, although no details about her character have been given. She joins a cast that includes John Boyega, who is playing the son of Idris Elba's Stacker Pentecost, along with Scott Eastwood. The cast of Pacific Rim: Maelstrom is also believed to include original Pacific Rim stars Ron Perlman (Hannibal Chau), Charlie Day (Dr. Newton Geiszler), Rinko Kikuchi (Mako Mori) and Burn Gorman (Gottleib), but they have not been confirmed yet.

Back in July Charlie Hunnam confirmed that he will not be reprising his role as Raleigh Beckett in Pacific Rim 2, due to scheduling conflicts, but he added that he is still excited to see the sequel. No other cast members have been confirmed at this time. Very little is known about the story, but the first movie was set in a world where humanity was forced to build massive robots known as Jaegers, to fight giant monsters known as kaiju and stop them from destroying the entire planet. Our previous report also revealed that part of the production will be set in China.

Pacific Rim earned $101.8 million domestically and $411 million worldwide, from a massive $190 million budget. There had been numerous reports that Legendary either delayed or canceled the sequel, but that all changed when Legendary merged with Chinese investment firm Dalian Wanda Group. Pacific Rim earned more in China ($111.9 million) than any other market in the world. No story details have been revealed at this time, but hopefully we'll learn more as production begins this fall.

Pacific Rim 2 will be directed by Stephen S. De Knight (Daredevil), from a screenplay that has been worked on by Guillermo del Toro, Travis Beacham, Jon Spaihts, Emily Carmichael, Zak Penn, Kira Snyder and Derek Connolly. The release of Pacific Rim: Maelstrom falls between the release of 20th Century Fox's Larrikins and Warner Bros.' shark thriller Meg. Ting Jian will next be seen in Universal's The Great Wall, arriving in theaters February 17, 2017 and in Warner Bros.' Kong: Skull Island, debuting March 10, 2017.