Stringer Bell is on the verge of becoming a sci-fi action hero, and it’s about damn time. Idris Elba got to test out the waters briefly in Thor and today, he (literally) lands Prometheus. But next summer, he’s finally got a lead role in one major sci-fi epic, Guillermo del Toro‘s Pacific Rim.

Also starring Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy), Rinko Kikuchi (The Brothers Bloom), Charlie Day (Horrible Bosses), and Ron Perlman (Hellboy), we got some plot details last month, but now the first image has arrived and del Toro has expanded on some of the massive scale in the movie. Check out his quote about the scope of the production from Total Film below, along with the first still featuring Elba suited up.

When we’re talking about the physicality of the fight, we ended up building several blocks of Hong Kong. And literally demolished them. We built a building and then we took down the buildings.

We built command centres of the robots that were the size of the house. We started them on hydraulic rigs that shoot and elevated them and moved them round so you could really get a sense of the physical nature driving a robot like this.

Synopsis:

When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes-a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi)-who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.

Pacific Rim hits theaters on July 12, 2013.