About Monster Hunter – Film

Monster Hunter Film

Monster Hunter is a 2020 monster film written, directed, and produced by Paul W. S. Anderson, based on the video game series of the same name by Capcom. The film stars Milla Jovovich in her fifth outing together with Anderson. The other cast members include Tony Jaa, Tip Harris, Meagan Good, Diego Boneta, Josh Helman, Jin Au-Yeung, and Ron Perlman. The film follows Artemis (Jovovich) and her loyal soldiers when they are transported to a new world, where they engage in a battle for survival against enormous monsters with incredible powers.

A film adaptation based on the series has been in conception since 2012 by director Paul W. S. Anderson. The film was formally announced by Capcom in October 2018, with production starting that month with Constantin Film. Principal photography on the film began on October 5, 2018, and was completed on December 19, 2018, in Cape Town, South Africa.

Monster Hunter was released to theaters during the COVID-19 pandemic, by Sony Pictures Releasing (excluding Germany, China and Japan), opening in China on December 4, 2020, and in the United States on December 18, 2020. The film was a box office disappointment, having only grossed $44 million worldwide against a production budget of $60 million and received mixed reviews, with praise for its action sequences, visual effects, and musical score, but criticism for its direction and editing.^[7] It received a nomination at the 19th Visual Effects Society Awards, in the category Outstanding Effects Simulations in a Photoreal Feature.

Monster Hunter Film

STORY

In the New World where humans co-exist with a wide variety of large and savage monsters, a Hunter, a warrior trained to hunt and kill these powerful creatures, is separated from his team when their ship is attacked by the Diablos, a horned subterranean monster.

On Earth, U.S. Army Ranger Captain Natalie Artemis and her United Nations security team search for a missing team of soldiers in the desert. A sudden storm pulls them into a portal to the New World where they find the remains of the missing soldiers and their vehicles. As the Diablos approach them, the Hunter, who is observing the group, fires a warning signal. The Diablos, impervious to bullets and grenades, attacks and kills two members of the squad.

The survivors hide in a cave, where they are attacked by a pack of monster-sized spiders called Nerscyllas. Artemis is injected with a paralyzing venom, and as the others try to save her, more Nerscyllas arrive and swarm them. Artemis wakes up in a Nerscylla lair, finding her team dead or infected with Nerscylla spawn, and escapes the lair by setting the pursuing monsters on fire. Above ground, she runs into the Hunter, and after fighting each other, they grudgingly agree to cooperate. Artemis learns that the portals are created by the Sky Tower, a structure located across the desert. The Hunter reveals they will need to kill the Diablos in order to cross the desert safely and reach the tower. Artemis learns how to fight using the Hunter’s unique bladed weapons and helps him set a trap for the Diablos to kill it with Nerscylla venom. The attack is successful, with Artemis delivering the finishing blow, but the Hunter is badly wounded. Constructing a makeshift stretcher, Artemis dutifully carries him across the desert.

The pair reaches an oasis populated with tortoise-like Dinosaurs called Apceros (resembling the Cretaceous Ankylosaurus). When a Rathalos, a fire-breathing Wyvern, flies by and causes the Apceros to stampede, Artemis and the Hunter are rescued by a group led by the Admiral. He explains that the Sky Tower was built by the first civilization to travel between worlds, using the monsters to protect it. Artemis agrees to help kill the Rathalos so she can return home.

In the ensuing battle, Artemis falls through the portal, returning to Earth. The portal does not close in time, and the Rathalos emerges and begins wreaking havoc. Artemis is able to slow it down long enough for the Hunter to slip through the portal and deliver the fatal shot. The Admiral approaches her, just before the appearance of another flying monster; a dragon known as Gore Magala. He notes that as long as the portal remains open, there will always be the threat that monsters will pass through to Earth. Artemis concludes that finding a way to take down the Sky Tower is now their primary objective.

In a mid-credits scene, Palico, the Admiral’s cat-like companion, arrives to help fight the Gore Magala, while an ominous cloaked figure observes the battle from the top of the tower.

CAST

Milla Jovovich as Natalie Artemis, a US Army Ranger member of a United Nations military team.
Tony Jaa as The Hunter, one of many highly skilled warriors that fight giant monsters.
Ron Perlman as The Admiral, the chieftain of a group of Hunters.

Tip “T.I.” Harris as Lincoln
Diego Boneta as Marshall
Meagan Good as Dash
Josh Helman as Steeler
Jin Au-Yeung as Axe
Hirona Yamazaki as Handler
Jannik Schümann as Aiden
Nanda Costa as Lea
Nic Rasenti as Captain Roark
Aaron Beelner as Palico

PRODUCTION

In 2012, Resident Evil director Paul W. S. Anderson was then-rumored to direct a film adaptation of Monster Hunter franchise. Anderson stated he had discovered the Monster Hunter series on travels to Japan around 2008 and had become a fan of the series, and considered a film adaptation as a “passion project”. Within a couple years from his introduction to the games, Anderson said he had started discussions with Capcom about securing the rights to make the film.

During the September 2016 Tokyo Game Show Capcom producer Ryozo Tsujimoto stated that a live-action Monster Hunter film was in development within Hollywood. A few months later, Anderson and producer Jeremy Bolt, both who helped to bring Capcom’s Resident Evil game to a series of films, had obtained the rights from Capcom for the Monster Hunter adaption after about five years of discussion. The two anticipate a series of Monster Hunter films. Anderson said he was drawn to the Monster Hunter property, not only because of the series’ popularity, but also for the “incredibly beautiful, immersive world they’ve created”. Anderson had already penned out a script, which would involve an American being dragged into the parallel universe in which the Monster Hunter series is set, learning how to fight monsters, and then having to deal with the situation when monsters cross back into the real world and start attacking, such as a final climactic battle at Los Angeles International Airport. At this stage of the script, the concept had been based on a young adult character from the real world called Lucas who was being sought as the hero to drive back the monsters from the real world to the fantasy one; in this form, the script would have explained why certain legends in the real world seemed to align with the monsters from the fantasy world. As the script developed over the intervening years, Anderson moved away from the “young adult” concept as the genre had become overused in Hollywood, and instead had developed a script based on the premises set by Avatar and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Anderson said that the film’s storyline was primarily based on a crossover event in the game Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker with Monster Hunter Freedom Unite in 2010, in which a military squad briefly faced monsters from the Monster Hunter series, with Milla Jovovich’s Artemis and Tony Jaa’s Hunter respectively replacing the video game roles of the characters Big Boss (Snake) and Trenya, stating that “I thought this was great imagery to juxtapose a man with a machine gun [Snake] against the creatures [of Monster Hunter].”.

The film was formally announced in May 2018. According to Anderson, the success of the most recent game of the series at the time, Monster Hunter: World, which was developed by Capcom in early 2018 for a worldwide release rather than a limited Japanese one, led many film distributors to seek out potential for a Monster Hunter film only to discover he had already locked up the rights.