Fans are looking forward to Mortal Kombat, one of the next big releases from Warner Bros following the release of Godzilla vs Kong. The upcoming video game adaptation has been highly anticipated for a variety of reasons, including the fact that it will be R-rated. What’s interesting, however, is that Mortal Kombat apparently almost received an NC-17 rating. As you can imagine, the rating was due to the massive amounts of graphic violence featured in the film. With that in mind, fans that were worried this live-action adaptation might be watered down needn’t worry.
While it’s relatively easy to depict high levels of violence in animated video games, live-action films are another story. As director Simon McQuoid revealed, the live-action nature of his upcoming Mortal Kombat film made it a little more tricky to maintain such levels of violence. Here’s what he had to say while speaking in a recent press event via Yahoo:
“So there were certain things that are in the game that would mean the film would be unreleasable,” he says, adding: “And none of us wanted that. So we were balancing that stuff all the time. And there’s some stuff that you will see that really gets quite close to the line.”
There you have it. The new Mortal Kombat movie, although not NC-17, will still be a very violent endeavor. This means it will remain close to the spirit of the original games as revealed in the official trailer. And no doubt it will be a lot of fun in general getting to see some of the games’ “Fatalities” portrayed on the big screen.
Simon McQuoid directed the new movie. Greg Russo and Dave Callaham wrote the script from a story by Oren Uziel and Russo.
The massive cast for the film includes Lewis Tan, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Tadanobu Asano, Mehcad Brooks, Ludi Lin, Chin Han, Joe Taslim, and Hiroyuki Sanada. Max Huang, Sisi Stringer, Daniel Nelson, Elissa Cadwell, Matilda Kimber, and Laura Brent also star in the film.
Fans can now expect the new Mortal Kombat film to hit theaters and HBO Max on April 23, 2021.