The Monster Hunter film is fully in production as of right now. And despite some missteps with promotion that prompted fan annoyance, things may be looking up. Thankfully, fans of Monster Hunter may have a glimmer of hope that the upcoming Paul W.S. Anderson film will actually be good. This is because recent interviews with the director revealed that he’s apparently been a longtime fan.
In an interview with /Film, Anderson revealed that he’s wanted to do a film about the legendary game franchise for at least 10 years. He even describes the film as a “passion project,” which will hopefully translate to some substantives story and an overall more interesting film for fans of the series.
The interview itself is mostly about Anderson’s other projects, namely a YouTube Premium series called Origin, but there is a bit to be gleaned about the in-production Monster Hunter film.
“I became aware of the game 10 years ago. I’ve been a long term fan of Monster Hunter before most people in the west even knew what it was. Partly because I spend a lot of time in Japan and I fell in love with the imagery of the game and started talking to Capcom about it nine years ago. It’s definitely a passion project of mine, nine years in the making.”
Fans will probably still be pretty cynical about this whole thing, but it wouldn’t be a video game movie without its share of purists and impossibly high standards. But at least the team behind the film has a grasp on some things fans want to see. When asked about characters, it was confirmed that The Handler, The Admiral, Aiden, Aiden’s Handler, and Palicoes would be in the movie. This means we’re going to see a lot of connective tissue with Monster Hunter: World in this film, which makes sense because Capcom would probably enjoy the increased visibility of the latest game in the franchise. The film will also feature plenty of newly created characters as well, so there’s some room for experimentation there.
“No, the movie has a lot of characters from the video game in it. There’s The Handler and Admiral, Aiden, Aiden’s Handler. We wanted Palico. It’s very much a movie of the video game, but in Monster Hunter you get to create your own character when you go in there. You don’t get to play Lara Craft or Jill Valentine. You get to play your own creation, and there is definitely an element of that in there. Some of the leading characters will be fresh characters but that’s a reflection of what the video game is. It’s definitely a movie that is firmly and fully entrenched in the world of the video game, as you would expect with me having worked with Capcom for nine years on adapting it and bringing it to the screen.”
The final big bit of information we now know is that the game will use monsters that are entirely already in the game. Anderson prefers to draw directly from the source material to try and encourage viewers to check out the games if they want to see more of the monsters in action. There’s no confirmation as to what monsters will actually be in the film. But speculation seems to tend heavily toward large and iconic species like Rathalos, Diablos, and maybe some larger Elders like Zorah Magdaros or some Fatalis variants.
“Listen, I don’t need to create any new monsters. There’s such a vast array of amazing creatures over the years. We’re leaning quite heavily on the favorite creatures from Monster Hunter: World which is the latest game, but we’re also bringing in what I think are some of the fabulous monsters from some of the earlier games and well, and some of the imagery from the earlier games.
So I think for fans of Monster Hunter World, you’ll recognize that world and the characters from that world very much, but also it’ll be a callback to some of the favorite moments and creatures from some of the earlier games, which hopefully will get people excited to check out those earlier games as well because there’s some magnificent imagery and monsters in those earlier games as well that I think a lot of people who have just played Monster Hunter: World may not be aware of.”
So all in all, there’s clearly some reverence for the source material which might translate to some good filmmaking. Let us know in the comments what you think about all of this.
