Milla Jovovich Reveals Monster Hunter's Original Harry Potter-Like Story

The new fantasy epic Monster Hunter is the latest video game adaptation to leave the critics divided. If you're in the mood for giant beasts and B-movie action, then you'll likely be pleased to hear the film largely sticks with the spirit of the games.

The blockbuster from Resident Evil director Paul W.S. Anderson sees a group of military personnel enter a portal to a different world that's populated by huge monsters. U.S. Army Ranger Captain Natalie Artemis (Milla Jovovich, an actress still in desperate need of acting lessons) leads her squadron to find a way home, and as they delve deeper into this strange world, they come across a hunter (Tony Jaa), who's proficient with killing these beasts. Together, they'll have to team up to find ways to take down one behemoth after the next in order to survive. 

After spending well over a decade in the Resident Evil franchise, Jovovich is back to kick butt and take names. With all her action movie cred, she seems like a perfect fit for the role, but as it turns out, Monster Hunter didn't always have a spot for her. The actress recently revealed that the script went through several iterations before landing on the story that would make good use of her talents. In fact, there was one version of the film that would have taken some cues from the Harry Potter movies. 

Milla Jovovich sat down with Polygon in anticipation of Monster Hunter's release, revealing some fun anecdotes about the process of bringing the film to the big screen. These tidbits included the fact that writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson (Jovovich's husband) had been trying to get the project off the ground since 2009. She revealed that it wasn't always in the cards for her to portray the lead, and that Anderson wrote several different versions of the screenplay before he landed on one with a starring role for his wife. In one of the most complete (rejected) versions, Anderson had the movie focus on a 14-year-old boy, which according to Jovovich had "more of a Harry Potter vibe." 

One day, Anderson brought Jovovich a version of the script with her in mind for the lead, and as she put it, "So when he brought me this version and said, 'I wrote this one for you and I think it's the best one I've done,' I was like, 'Are you kidding me? We just closed Resident Evil. I've been fighting zombies for the last 15 years and now you want me to kill monsters?'" It sounds as though Jovovich wanted to take a break from action-heavy movies for a while in the aftermath of Resident Evil, but considering Anderson wrote a version of Monster Hunter with her in the mind as lead, she probably couldn't resist getting back in the saddle. 

With new behemoths and heart-pounding action sequences, the Monster Hunter movie is bound to satisfy fans of Paul W.S. Anderson's work. The film is now playing is select theaters across the country.