Director Paul W.S. Anderson sees his upcoming film adaptation of Monster Hunter as the potential start of a whole new franchise.
"Listen, I love Monster Hunter," Anderson told Polygon. "It was, it was my favorite movie of any movie in my career to make. Just the experience of kind of going out to these incredible landscapes and building a team spirit with the crew and the actors, you know? Us against the environment in a way. It was something truly special."
"So, you know, it's definitely a world that I would love to continue exploring but we always take it one movie at a time, you know?" Anderson continued. "We, we want to kind of kick ass with this film first before considering doing anything else."
Anderson is no stranger to launching long-term movie franchises based on video games. His 2002 film adaptation of Resident Evil spawned five sequels as well as an upcoming reboot. Meanwhile, the principal Monster Hunter video game series has spanned five installments, with a sixth on the way, in addition to numerous spin-offs.
Launched in 2004, Capcom's Monster Hunter video game series consists of five core games. At last count, the franchise had sold approximately 63 million copies worldwide, with the latest game, Monster Hunter World, selling 15.5 million. A new game, Monster Hunter Rise, is currently in development and is scheduled for release in 2021.
The Monster Hunter film adaptation recently kicked off its marketing campaign with a 16-second teaser depicting the film's protagonist Lt. Artemis (Milla Jovovich) facing off against a giant, horned beast known as Diablo. The teaser also revealed that Monster Hunter's release date had been moved up to Dec. 2020.
Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, Monster Hunter stars Milla Jovovich, Ron Perlman, TI, Tony Jaa, Meagan Good and Diego Boneta. The film arrives in theaters Dec. 30, 2020.
(Source: Polygon)