‘Mortal Kombat’: The Movie Is Back With Some Hollywood Aces

It is the 20th anniversary of Mortal Kombat: The Movie, and the franchise as a whole is just as strong now as it ever was. To celebrate, Hollywood has finally decided to make a concerted effort to bring the cinema arm of the franchise back to its former glory. Furious 7 director James Wan has been brought on to reboot the 1995 version of MK: The Movie.

This is a huge win for any fan, since Wan specializes in either keeping franchises on top or reinvigorating dying ones like Mortal Kombat.

Since the massive hit of Mortal Kombat: The Movie, there have been several failed attempts at recreating the magic that was achieved 20 years ago. In 1997, the sequel was the last project to actually make it to the big screen, but after watching the first 5 minutes, the world knew that it was going to be an eventual flop. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation received a paltry 2 stars on IMDb, essentially sealing the fate of any future sequel / remake to be received with any real enthusiasm.

That is, until now. The script is being named Mortal Kombat: Legacy and is headed up by veteran writers Oren Uziel and Dave Callaham, who both have lengthy Hollywood resumes. The idea is to hopefully ride the wave that the successful 2012 web series, Mortal Kombat: Legacy, has already created for them.

The plot has been described as follows.

“[A] seemingly harmless guy who realizes his potential when he finds himself caught in the middle of a cross-dimensional battle between the warriors of Earth and the monsters of Outworld. Now, in order to stop the world from total destruction, he must win the martial arts tournament known as Mortal Kombat.”

It will be interesting to see where they focus the movie’s environment, having both Earth and Mortal Kombat’s Outworld to work with. We will most likely see a shift to a more CG-fueled Outworld scenario, given that Wan is known for producing over-the-top scenes.

It is true that Wan is hot right now in the Hollywood scene, having just come off of the 5th highest grossing film in cinematic history, but video game reboots aren’t exactly known to be slam dunks. Many video game franchises that have sold millions of copies around the world are notorious for having their cinematic counterparts flop in grand fashion. This was not the case back in 1995, where the momentum for Mortal Kombat was at an all-time high due to its highly controversial content. The allure of blood and gore in video games has seriously died down since then, so it raises the question of whether Wan has the star power to fight this uphill battle.

[Image Credit via kungfukingdom.com]