It’s pretty common for films and games to get delayed, but having their release dates moved up is something we don’t see that often. It turns out that Capcom and the film studios behind the Monster Hunter film have moved up the release. Paul W. S. Anderson directs the $60 million project with support from Screen Gem and Tencent Pictures. The project was originally delayed earlier this year citing COVID-19 and other issues, until 2021.
The movie will now be released in December after having been previously postponed to April 2021. There are a few takeaways from this, although it’s hard to know the reason for the change. There has been no official announcement yet, but the original release date of April 23, 2021, was pretty far off. Maybe they managed to film the movie faster than intended, and are releasing it to stave off the loss of having to hold the production cost on their books longer than intended. There are a few red flags this could raise. Was production rushed to hit this shooting target? Have they had the film finished for months and are just releasing it sooner because they don’t care? Whatever the reason, it does seem pretty surprising to move the film up in the release schedule like this.
The studio also released a new trailer for the film, showing a pretty short reveal of the plot details we already knew. The teaser shows a Black Diablos roaring out of the sand and ambushing Milla Jovovich and her military squad. The Twitter account for the franchise remarked “Diablos has found her prey.”
Jovovich plays Natalie Artimis, the leader of a group of military specialists who get transported to a mysterious world filled with monsters. That plot alone was enough to elicit a backlash from fans, who have seemingly written off the entire film as garbage already. This new release date certainly won’t do that any favors. At the very least, fans will get to see various iconic monsters from the games in addition to Black Diablos.
Something about the reveal of this trailer was pointed out by fans. Diablos of multiple varieties are territorial herbivores. they only eat cacti, so saying they’re prey hunters is inaccurate. It’s a very minor nitpick, but it does illustrate the minor things that fans will incessantly pick apart with the Monster Hunter film when it does release later this year.
