Paul W. S. Anderson might be best known for his video game adaptations like Resident Evil or Mortal Kombat, but now, he’s got his eyes set on another major video game franchise: Monster Hunter.
The game series is as it sounds: players hunt, uh… monsters, and the trailer shows that the film will be full of monsters to hunt.
Capcom (the same studio behind Resident Evil) kicked off the video game franchise in 2004, and since then, it’s released five installments, as well as a handful of spinoffs. Players take on the role of a Hunter, where they’re tasked with protecting their villages against a variety of monsters, using a variety of weapons.
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The film looks like it’ll follow in that mold, although they’re taking some significant liberties with the plot. In the trailer, a team of soldiers are responding to a distress call from another squad when they come across a series of strange markers, which abruptly transport them into another world. “So what, we’re like Guardians of the Galaxy now?” One of them asks.
This world is, as the title suggests, is populated by monsters, and the soldiers—led by Resident Evil‘s Milla Jovovich—put their weapons and skills to use as they work to figure out how to survive and return home.
Anderson has been attached to the project for nearly a decade, and began development on it back in 2016. The film (and Jovovich’s casting) were officially announced in 2018. The film’s release date has bounced around a bit: it was originally slated to be released in September 2020, only to be delayed to April 2021 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. But earlier this month, Screen Gems bumped the film forward to December 30th, which is now its current theatrical release date.
