Anderson VS Bay
Monster Hunter Movie is gearing up folks. Fans of the director Paul W.S. Anderson jokingly say that he and video games movies go hand in hand.
Like peanut butter and jelly. The critics of Anderson on the other hand, sneer on the lack of artistic quality of his movies. They even compare them to a watered-down Michael Bay extravaganza.
Me? I’m somewhere in the middle. I’ll be the first to admit that his adaptations bare little to none similarities to the original material. Oh, and they’re shockingly low on the artistic quality side of the spectrum. But, they do have not one but two redeeming qualities.
They’re much more fun and surprisingly cheaper to make compared to those of his colleagues. That’s right… Cheaper. Let’s take Michael Bay for example. While Bay’s movies regularly break the 100 million dollar budget. Hey, sometimes even the 200 million dollar budget.
But, that’s not the case with Paul W.S. Anderson. One of the rare movie instances that come even close to that of a Bay-style of a budget is Pompeii. Yes, that’s right.
The 2014 historical disaster film had a budget somewhere between 80 and 100 million, dollars…. But almost the rest of Anderson’s projects were well bellow that mark.
The Begginings
However, let’s focus on his video-game adaptation. Monster Hunter. Anderson’s latest video game adaptation is arriving in theaters near the end of this summer (release dates may vary depending on the country). And of course it has Mila Jovovich in the lead role. But before I explore the hype behind this movie, let’s take a step back. Let’s go back to the beginnings of Anderson’s career.
Let go back to the mid 90’s and the legend that is Mortal Kombat. The 1995 movie was Anderson’s second attempt behind camera. It came out in theaters when most of us were accustomed to horrible video game adaptations.
Super Mario Bros, Double Dragon and Street Fighter were not impressing anyone (and especially not the critics). but Mortal Kombat seemed like a decent improvement to the Hollywood offerings of the time.
Resident Evil started a whole movie franchise some years later, and it seemed that 18 years after delivering the first Resident Evil movie adaptation, Capcom had faith in Anderson to dip his hands into another of their video-games. Monster Hunter.
The Origins of Monster Hunter Movie
Monster Hunter obviously has Mila Jovovich in the role of Lt. Artemis (she’s Anderson’s wife after all), but Mila is not the only reason behind the hype and excitement about this movie. No. The Monster Hunter movie has incredible supporting cast that I think that precisely the quality of the casting will be super beneficial to the overall quality of the movie.
Tony Jaa stars as the Hunter while T.I. and the ultimate Hellboy, Ron Perlman will provide much of the support and gravitas to the movie. And last but certainly not least…. Josh Helman is in Monster Hunter too.
I know what you thinking… Josh who? Yeah, he may not be your regular Hollywood A-list actor, but if you look down his acting resume you’ll find fantastic movies and performances.
He was young William Stryker in some of the X-Men movies. He was Slit in Mad Max– Fury Road. Also, he was Lenny McLean in My Name Is Lenny. Oh, do me a favor and binge on Flesh And Bone. You’ll thank me later, because he was awesome in the mini-series too.
Fun facts about Monster Hunter movie
And in fact, T.I. is reportedly in Monster Hunter the movie because his younger son is huge fan of the video games. And so is (to a surprise of no one) Paul W.S. Anderson. In fact, he was reportedly rumored to direct the movie adaptation back in 2012. It took him 6 additional years to actually get his passion project from just an idea, to principal photography status. But he made it.
How cool is that? In addition of being director, Anderson is credited as screenwriter of Monster Hunter movie. Oh and he serves as one of the producers of the movie as well. Furthermore, from what I could see, the production team has really nailed the look of the huge jawblade sword and the other weapons designed for slaying and fighting the monsters.
Oh, and the director even stated that all of the weapons and armor that the Hunters will wear in this movie will be actually based on the military combat equipment from the awesome game series.
So, yeah. I and almost everyone here at IndieGala are pretty hyped and excited about the Monster Hunter movie. Paul. W.S. Anderson helmed and wrote the movie, Mila Jovovich is teaming up with Ron Perlman to kill some monsters and we can’t wait for the summer to be here.
Are you hyped about Monster Hunter as well? Well, while we patiently await the theatrical release of the movie, there are plenty of Monster Hunter video games you can play. For PC however, we have Monster Hunter World with its latest expansion: Iceborne. Have a snoop around here at Indie Gala and pick the right ones for yourself.
