Resident Evil actress Milla Jovovich is set to star in another film adaptation of a video game series, this time in Paul W.S. Anderson and Constantin Film’s Monster Hunter, which is poised to begin production later this year in September with a piggy bank full of approximately $60 million.
Videos by ComicBook.com
The news come via Variety, who also reports that like Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, Monster Hunter will be shot in South Africa, more specifically, in and around the iconic and beautiful Cape Town.
“The crews are great there and, at least for a European company, it’s easy to get there: Same time zone, overnight flights, “said Martin Moszkowicz, Chairman of the Executive Board of Constantin Film. “We are very much in a comfort zone of production.”
Constantin is also said to be partnering with a “big company” out of Japan (where the series is most popular) and another in China, both who will receive equity in the project. Beyond these two deals however, Constantin will be footing the rest of the bill out of its own pocket.
Meanwhile, special effects will come way of Mr. X, which previously worked with the company on the Resident Evil franchise. According to Moszkowicz, the film will be a highly stylized big screen adaptation of the video game series, which just recently broke out of its ‘big in Japan, small everywhere else’ niche with the release of Monster Hunter World, the best-selling game in the series, and the best-selling game ever for its developer and publisher, Capcom.
“Paul has proven over and over he does stylish movies. It’s one of his big strong points. He can make a movie look good, he is very much into visuals,” said Moszkowicz.
For those that don’t know: Monster Hunter is a fantasy-themed action role-playing series that debuted back in 2004 via the PlayStation 2. Published and developed by Capcom, the series has shipped over 45 million copies as of January 2018, and already has an anime based on it, a manga, a book, and is now finally getting the movie treatment.
Monster Hunter games are notably very light on story, so it will be interesting to see how it transitions to the film format. In the series, players take on the role of a Hunter, and basically trap and slay monsters so that they can get better loot and resources to take on bigger monsters, and repeat this over and over until there is no more monsters left to slay. Again, how this will be made into a movie, well, remains to be seen.
