UPDATE (July 10, 2020): Monster Hunter has shifted to April 23, 2021
In an interview with Empire magazine, director Paul Anderson and actress Milla Jovovich have shared some new info on Monster Hunter. Just to give a little bit of background, Monster Hunter is a video game franchise developed by Capcom. You may recognize their other video games they developed such as Mega Man, Dark Stalkers, Street Fighter, Devil May Cry, and Resident Evil. Paul Anderson is notorious for directing the Resident Evil movies, which are have been bombed by the majority of fans. With Paul Anderson helming the Monster Hunter movie, excitement for this movie is at an all time low.
Before the interview started, one thing that caught my eye was that the release date was "Early 2021" instead of the movie's original September 4th release date. So an announcement for the movie's delay should be expected.
At the beginning of the interview, Anderson and Jovovich were asked about how Monster Hunter is different from Resident Evil. Jovovich's reply was that there are no zombies, for one, and Anderson gave his more detailed reply.
"Resident Evil was very much a survival horror. This is an action-adventure film. It's PG-13. There were creatures in the Resident Evil films, but all our monsters are 50-, 60- feet tall. They're really amazing. We're building them in even more detail than the dinosaurs of Jurassic World. And they look even better, because we shot on real locations in South Africa and Namibia, which gives the animators something to really match into: real wind, real dust, real sun-flare. The monsters are the only thing CG in there. Everything else – these incredible landscapes, the actors – is there for real. I think we had one day where we put up a green screen and that was it. It's as real as a movie with giant monsters can be."
In the middle of the interview, Anderson and Jovovich explain their experiences while shooting the film in Namibia getting bruised constantly from the stunts. They even joke that despite actor Tony Jaa having so much energy there was a time where he was so warn out that at three in the morning he was half asleep while trying to munch on a slice of pizza.
When asked about why they decided to adapt this particular video game series into a movie Anderson replies that he and Jovovich are big fans of the game. Anderson liked the landscapes and the monsters, but what he loved most is that the main character of the game is just an unnamed hunter. When the player starts the game they customize the character that they choose to play as. He goes on to explain that a lot of the characters in the movie are non-playable characters from the game using Ron Perlman as the Admiral as an example.
Jovovich's character, Natalie Artemis, is this movie's version of the player's avatar. Jovovich continues Anderson's response to share a little insight on her character.
"She's not based on a character from the game. Paul wrote her as the captain of a team of Army Rangers that go in to rescue their colleagues…I always played the twin blades, because they're the fastest. I experimented with different weapons during the game and was able to kill more monsters with those blades. I thought they'd look really beautiful in an action sequence."
At the end of the interview, they state that they're glad the movie is completed and they had a lot of fun making the movie.
While I am not particularly a fan of the video games I'm not really excited for it either. In fact, I keep forgetting this movie was coming out. Movies based on video games are usually frowned upon since some video games don't have stories for a movie to build around. However, Sonic The Hedgehog actually came as a surprise to many people with being an all around fun movie. Even Rampage, despite not being totally accurate to the video games, was still a fun monster movie. So perhaps it all depends on who is handling the movie and how the movie is handled. Based on Paul Anderson's track record on his Resident Evil movie series, however, it is easy to dismiss Monster Hunter since the Resident Evil movies has not been very good by a majority of people.
What do you guys think? Do you think Monster Hunter will be another fun video game movie or do you think it will be a stinker like Resident Evil? Leave a comment on your thoughts on this interview and let me know if you are excited or underwhelmed for Monster Hunter. Make sure to follow me on my Facebook, Twitter, and Minds pages to stay up to date for more news, reviews, and discussions.