Paul W.S. Anderson is good at one thing: making self-indulgent video game movies with pretty big cult followings. Monster Hunter seems to be following suit. During a new panel at New York Comic-Con 2020, Anderson showed up to talk about his films and share what we all want to see: some monster fightin’.
During the panel, talking to Polygon’s Matt Patches, Anderson discussed the process of shooting the film, which included a jet-setting shooting tour around Africa to capture sweeping vistas worthy of the striking natural paradises of the game series, a shoot that involved heavy use of practical effects to offset the fully digital monsters. The monsters, of course, are still the star of the show, created over painstaking months of digital creation. These monsters, Anderson said, were the backbone of his interest in the series. And much effort was made for these monsters to be authentic to the games, too, to the point of getting feedback on specific animations from the game’s developers.
Speaking of which: Anderson also premiered a striking new clip of one of the movie’s monsters, which is directly adapted from the game. In it, Milla Jovovich’s crew has an encounter with a Greater Rathalos, one of the Monster Hunter world’s most intimidating, and most lethal, creatures. It does not go well. To face it, she’s going to have to meet up with the movie’s other big star: Giant Sword.
You can check out the clip, and the rest of the panel, below. There’s a lot of talking about Anderson’s other films, too, if you’re into that.
Monster Hunter is due out this December.