Mortal Kombat is the only video game to movie adaptation that dominated the box-office when it got released in 1995. However, the sequel was nothing but “Garbage, ” and that is when the M.K movie franchise perished. The games, on the other hand, haven’t lost their charm, in fact, they are still one of most selling AAA title in the gaming world. There is an enormous fanbase that would love to see a live-action movie that takes them to the adventurous world of Mortal Kombat.
Mortal Kombat is in works from past three years, and the only thing that has progressed concerning this film is changing names of the script-writers and the directors. However since James Wan has decided to produce the movie, we at least see regular updates about the upcoming film. He has even tagged Simon McQuoid as the director. The script has gone through many great minds, but it is still getting polished, and according to the latest update it should be ready before Christmas. The mastermind Oren Uziel who had given us the infamous “Mortal Kombat: Rebirth” revealed that his script had characters like Avengers, but they exist in “R-Rated Universe,” this is how he explained his script during the promotional event of his Netflix series “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 the 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.”
His dark and fun approach on Mortal Kombat seems exciting, and maybe it is something that we all want from a Mortal Kombat movie. But the biggest problem is that it is not able to come out of the Production Hell! We only keep hearing about some inconsequential confirmations on the administration or cast rumors, but nothing emerges to make this film a reality. Having said that we are still hopeful that James will actualize this project.
Dave Callaham (Godzilla fame) modified Oren Uziel’s script and submitted his latest draft that is being polished by James at this point. Dave said that he had not tampered much with Oren’s work, he just added some fun elements between the characters that would bring some lighthearted moments in the dark, brutal, gory and enigmatic ecosphere created by Uziel.
Oren has a long history with Mortal Kombat content, and he explained more about his script like this:-
“I have a long history with that Mortal Kombat project. It was kind of the first thing I got hired on. After Shimmer Lake had gone 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 on board 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.”
Christopher Lambert, who played the cardinal role of Lightning God “Raiden” had validated in an interview that he got invited for some talks related to an M.K sequel that had a synopsis involving inter-dimensional time travel. He also hinted that the new movie is not going to be a complete reboot, instead, it will be situated in parallel dimension of the first movie. However, this trippy synopsis from Christopher hasn’t been confirmed by the James Wan.
