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Paul W.S. Anderson says Monster Hunter creatures stomp over Jurassic World’s dinos with 'more detail'
Paul W.S. Anderson's Monster Hunter adaptation took the first word in its title very seriously when it came to the creature designs. Chatting with Empire Magazine for the publication's August issue, the director threw some monstrous shade at another franchise with massive, man-eating beasts.
"All our monsters are 50-60 feet tall. They're really amazing. We're building them in even more detail than the dinosaurs of Jurassic World," Anderson said. "And they look even better, because we shot on real locations in South Africa and Namibia, which gives the animators something to really match into: real wind, real dust, real sun-flare. The monsters are the only CG thing in there."
The gauntlet has been thrown. Your move, Mr. Trevorrow.
Later in the interview, Anderson revealed that the crew would jokingly describe the movie and its commitment to realism as "Lawrence of Arabia ... but with monsters!"
For this project (based on the Capcom video game series of the same name), Anderson re-teamed with Resident Evil's Milla Jovovich, who plays Lt. Artemis, leader of an elite unit of soldiers who find themselves in an alternate dimension full of deadly monsters. Once there, they try to stay alive and find a way back home, relying on the expertise of a mysterious hunter played by Tony Jaa. While the character of Artemis is not to be found in any of the games, Jovovich actually played them before filming got underway, picking out specific armor and weapons that could be fabricated for the screen adaptation.
"I always played the twin blades, because they're fastest," she told Empire. "I experimented with the different weapons during the game and was able to kill more monsters with those blades. I thought they'd look really beautiful in an action sequence."
Also written by Anderson, Monster Hunter is currently on track to monster-mash its way into theaters Friday, Sept. 4. Tip "T.I." Harris, Meagan Good, Diego Boneta, Josh Helman, Jin Au-Yeung, and Ron Perlman co-star.
