The Monster Hunter movie has been given a budget of 60 million dollars to bring the beloved franchise to the big screen, and will start production in September. Constantin Film will once again work together with director Paul W. S. Anderson and producer Jeremy Bolt, as well as Resident Evil star Milla Jovovich. These are the same people that have also worked on the Resident Evil movie adaptions.
Like Resident Evil, Monster Hunter is also a property of Capcom, and thus it makes sense for them to work together with the people that brought Resident Evil to the big screen. Capcom has recently announced that Monster Hunter World has surpassed a total of 7.9 million shipments, making it the largest release the company has ever had. It’s obvious why Capcom wants to try and bring the game to the big screen. They have even envisioned it as a film series, which means that if the first movie does well it there will be many more to come.
Adapting a game into a movie is generally considered a bad idea. Some of the best games out there have been made into movies that just suck. They fail to do anything interesting or completely butcher the source material. We only have to think back to 2016 to see some of the worst of the worst. Assassin’s Creed and Warcraft, both movies were based on successful games, had a great cast and large budgets but ultimately failed to deliver. Both movies, like most other video game adaptations, were boring to watch and big letdowns despite the successful games that they were adapting.
Although this might seem like an awful omen for the Monster Hunter movie, the Resident Evil adaptions that Paul Anderson has directed have been some of the least awful video game adaptations we have had. Despite some misses here and there the movies have at least been fun to watch although they have not been received with the greatest critical acclaim. We can only hope that the Monster Hunter movie will be successful adaption, as the franchise, famous for it’s stunning and breathtaking monsters definitely deserves a fantastic movie.