Mortal Kombat was one of the first big video game adaptations. And it was also considered by some to be one of the worst. And once its sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation was released in 1997, the film franchise went into hibernation until now.
A reboot has been in the works for years now, and screenwriter Oren Uziel has revealed some new script details that have led to it being called an R-rated, violent version of The Avengers.
He elaborated on some of these concepts during an interview with Collider regarding his upcoming Netflix film Shimmer Lake.
“Well, and again I don’t know what remains of this, but I know that it was going to be, it’s almost like if you took The Avengers, or if you took a storyline like that and set it in a sort of hard-R, over-the-top violence and hard-edged world of Mortal Kombat. It was a little bit like that, it was a little bit like a Wanted-type story that brought together a bunch of these characters and just pulled zero punches, and had a tone that was still fun but very dark.”
He also went on to explain some of the development history of the film:
“I have a long history with that Mortal Kombat project. It was kind of the first thing I got hired on. After Shimmer Lake went out around town I took a lot of meetings and one of the first job’s I got, and then ended up not getting, was to write Mortal Kombat for Warner Bros. But the guy who hired me exited the company before we even completed the paperwork. So it was like a job that existed and then disappeared, it was soul-crushing. But Kevin Tancharoen, who I guess was also trying to direct that movie before it went away, he called me and said, ‘Hey, would you be willing to write a short that I would shoot, because I think there’s something here, I think we can convince Warner Bros. to do it. I ended up writing a short for him that he shot and it became kind of a big thing, and I know he used that to convince Machinima to make the digital series which I didn’t have anything to do with, and then after a couple years of that New Line came onboard to actually make a feature version again. And it was at that point that Kevin called and New Line called and said, ‘Hey, you were there at at the beginning, do you wanna come back?’ I said, ‘Sure’, so I wrote them a feature that has been the basis of what the Mortal Kombat movie will be, but it’s been kicking around for a little while now. I know James Wan came on to produce, so that to me was a good sign that maybe things were heating up again, but beyond that I really don’t know the specifics.”
Although there’s no release date, the film last had director Simon McQuoid attached to direct. It was also rumored to be a quasi-sequel with at least Christopher Lambert returning as Raiden, but that has yet to be confirmed officially.
Source: Collider