The Resident Evil director believes Monster Hunter could be the next big blockbuster.
Besides occasionally getting confused with the great Paul Thomas Anderson, director Paul W.S. Anderson's greatest claim to film fame has arguably been his work on the Resident Evil movies. While far from masterpieces, those films have exceeded the expectations of filmgoers everywhere by being movies based on video games which aren't always completely unwatchable.
Now that the Resident Evil series is behind Mr. Anderson, he's already set his sights on a new video game franchise to bring to the big screen.
In an interview with Deadline, Anderson and his production partner Jeremy Bolt have revealed that they are currently in the process of pitching a film adaptation of Capcom's Monster Hunter franchise. While none of the involved parties have confirmed that the deal is done, Anderson does express several times during this interview that he is a big fan of the Monster Hunter games. In fact, he goes so far as to suggest that the Monster Hunter games are bigger for Capcom right now than the Resident Evil franchise is and that the world building exhibited in the series thus far is on par with the universe of Star Wars.
Anderson's genuine fandom is important to keep in mind because his ideas for the franchise are interesting, to say the least. While Anderson didn't lay out his full pitch during the interview, he noted that the basic idea behind the planned film franchise involves the creatures of the Monster Hunter games invading our modern day world and inspiring regular people to rise up and defend themselves.
The unique creatures in the Monster Hunter games would surely lend themselves well to a special effects spectacle which sounds like the vision that Paul Anderson has for this movie. Whether or not he is able to secure the rights to the franchise and a budget on par with the latter movies in the Resident Evil franchise will ultimately determine if he's able to make that vision a reality.