‘Mortal Kombat’ Movie Gets A Director
A newMortal Kombatmovie has been in development for a few years already without much to show for it, to the point where it was easy to forget aMortal Kombatmovie was in development at all. But in recent months, we started hearing rumblings that the film was getting back on track. And now today, it’s taking a giant leap forward. Commercials directorSimon McQuoidhas been set to direct the video game adaptation, which is being produced byJames Wanfor New Line.
Varietyreports McQuoid is currently in talks.Greg Russowrote the most recent draft of the script. Producing with Wan areMichael Clearof Atomic Monster andTodd GarnerandJeremy Steinof Broken Road.Lawrence Kasanoffwill serve as executive producer.
TheMortal Kombatproperty started as a video game franchise in 1992, and got a live-action movie adaptation in 1995 directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. The film wasn’t very good, but the brand name was apparently popular enough to carry it to a $122 million worldwide gross. However, the sequel, 1997’sMortal Kombat: Annihilationfared even worse with criticsandalso tanked at the box office, so that was the end of that. There have been attempts since then to make a thirdMortal Kombatmovie, but those efforts have languished in development hell.
The franchise got a jolt of energy recently, however, with the recent web seriesMortal Kombat: Legacy. Then in 2015, Wan came on board to produce the thirdMortal Kombatmovie. As of a few months ago he was reassuring fans the project wasmoving forward, albeit not at a “rushed” pace:
It’s still cooking away. With that particular project, that’s a really cool property that I lovedgrowingup as a kid. Besides the game, even the movies as well, I kind of enjoyed them for what they are. The key here is to try and do it right. I don’t want to rush into it. So right now, we’re just trying to take our time to make sure it’s heading in the right direction. I think that’s more important than trying to rush through it and pump up something that no one likes.
At the time, he also offered some hints about what we could expect from the sequel:
I love the characters. I think they’re such colorful characters. It’s such an amazing take on, basically, ‘Enter the Dragon.’ It’s that fantasy version, the video game version, of ‘Enter the Dragon.’ And in doing so, they ended up creating such interesting characters and I think that is such a cool world to explore. This really mythical, bigger world that lives on another dimension on top of ours. I think that’s really fun to play with and so we’ll see.
A James Wan-producedEnter the Dragonhomage with a fantasy vibe? That… actually sounds kind of interesting, even if the previousMortal Kombatmovies don’t exactly inspire faith. And even though video game moviesstilltend to suck more often than not. Okay, yeah, consider our expectations managed. We’ll attempt to keep them around “cautiously hopeful” for the time being.
