Paul W.S. Anderson, the director of the upcoming Monster Hunter Hollywood film, recently spoke in an interview about his “passion project” as a longtime fan of the series.
Here are the highlights regarding the Monster Hunter film:
Was Monster Hunter a game you were obsessed with like you were Resident Evil?
Paul W.S. Anderson, Director: 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.
Is it similar to Resident Evil in that you’re creating new, original characters like Alice was?
Paul W.S. Anderson: 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.
Do you get to realize all the monsters from the game or create any new ones?
Paul W.S. Anderson: 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.
The Monster Hunter film is currently in production. You can check out its first pictures from the set in our previous report.
