Mortal Kombat is a new film based on the popular videogame franchise and the second attempt to create a film franchise from this.
So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about the new film.
- Mortal Kombat is a 2021 American martial arts fantasy film
- It is directed by Simon McQuoid
- This is his feature directorial debut
- The film is from a screenplay by Greg Russo and Dave Callaham
- It is based on a story by Russo and Oren Uziel
- It is based on the video game franchise of the same name
- The video game franchise was created by Ed Boon and John Tobias
- The new film is serving as a reboot to the Mortal Kombat film series
- The film stars Lewis Tan, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Tadanobu Asano, Mehcad Brooks, Ludi Lin, Chin Han, Joe Taslim, and Hiroyuki Sanada
- Following the critical and commercial failure of the 1997 film Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, a third Mortal Kombat film languished in development hell for a period of nearly two decades
- In late 2010, Warner Bros. Pictures (whose parent company acquired the franchise from Midway Games in 2009) began developing a new film
- Kevin Tancharoen serving as director from a script written by Uziel in the wake of their Mortal Kombat: Rebirth short film
- James Wan was announced as a producer in August 2015
- McQuoid was hired as director in November 2016
- Production took place at Adelaide Studios in Adelaide and at other locations in South Australia
- Principal photography occurred from September to December 2019
- Mortal Kombat was released by Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema internationally on April 8, 2021
- It was released in the United States on April 23, simultaneously in theaters in 3D and on the HBO Max streaming service
- The film received mixed reviews from critics
- It recieved praise for the violence and faithfulness to the games but criticism for the screenplay
- In 1997, Robin Shou’s original Mortal Kombat contract was a three-picture deal and Threshold Entertainment’s production on a second sequel was initially scheduled to commence shortly after the release of Annihilation
- But it was shelved due to Annihilation’s poor reception and disappointing box-office performance
- Attempts to produce a third film since then have remained stuck in development hell with numerous script rewrites and storyline, cast, and crew changes
- A November 2001 poll on the official Mortal Kombat website hosted by Threshold asked fans which characters they believed would die in the third movie
- The 2005 destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina greatly affected one of the film’s planned shooting locations
- In June 2009, a bankruptcy court lawsuit saw Lawrence Kasanoff suing Midway Games while mentioning that a third film was in the works
- Warner Bros. Pictures (which became the parent of New Line Cinema in 2008, after over a decade of both operating as separate divisions of Time Warner) ended up purchasing most of Midway’s assets, including Mortal Kombat
- In 2010, director Kevin Tancharoen released an eight-minute short film titled Mortal Kombat: Rebirth
- He made as a pitch to Warner Bros. Pictures of a reboot of the Mortal Kombat film franchise
- In September 2011, New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. announced that Tancharoen was hired to direct a new feature-length film from a screenplay by Mortal Kombat: Rebirth writer Oren Uziel, with the intention of aiming for an R rating
- Shooting was expected to begin in March 2012 with a budget projected at between $40 to 50 million and a release date of 2013
- However, the project was ultimately delayed due to budget constraints, and Tancharoen began working on the second season of the web series Mortal Kombat: Legacy, until problems with the film had been sorted out
- But he quit the film production in October 2013
- Simon McQuoid was hired as director in November 2016, marking his feature directorial debut, with Greg Russo writing the script
- Russo tweeted in February 2019 that the film’s script was complete
- In May 2019, it was announced that the film had entered pre-production and would be shot in South Australia, with a release date of March 5, 2021
- Russo tweeted in July 2019 that the film would indeed have an R rating and that the games’ Fatalities would “finally be on the big screen”
- In April 2021, McQuoid revealed that the film came “quite close to the line” of getting an NC-17 rating by the Motion Picture Association
- Joe Taslim was the first actor cast for the production in July 2019, as Bi-Han, the first Sub-Zero
- In August, Mehcad Brooks, Tadanobu Asano, Sisi Stringer, and Ludi Lin were cast in the roles of Jax, Raiden, Mileena, and Liu Kang respectively
- Later that month, Josh Lawson, Jessica McNamee, Chin Han and Hiroyuki Sanada were cast as Kano, Sonya Blade, Shang Tsung and Scorpion respectively, with Lewis Tan in the role of Cole Young, an original character created for the film
- On September 16, 2019, it was announced that Max Huang had been cast as Kung Lao
- Stuntwoman Elissa Cadwell was announced as having been cast as Nitara on November 11, 2019
- However, in the film she is actually played by Mel Jarnson
- Matilda Kimber was cast as Emily on December 4, 2019
- Production took place at Adelaide Studios and other locations in South Australia
- Lasting from September 16 to December 13, 2019
- In November 2020, Todd Garner stated that “we have more days to shoot” in a statement regarding the film’s release delay
- The film was shot on the ARRI ALEXA LF and Mini LF cameras with Panavision Anamorphic lenses
- The score for Mortal Kombat was composed by Benjamin Wallfisch
- In March 2021, director Simon McQuoid revealed that Wallfisch actually began compositions for the film before he was officially hired on the project
- The film will include a new version of the track “Techno Syndrome” by The Immortals produced by Wallfisch
- In its opening international weekend, the film made $10.7 million from 17 countries
- Its largest market being Russia ($6.1 million)
- In its second weekend the film made $5.7 million from 28 countries
- On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 56% rating
- Based on 166 reviews
- W th an average rating of 5.5/10
- The site’s critics consensus reads, “Largely for fans of the source material but far from fatal(ity) flawed, Mortal Kombat revives the franchise in appropriately violent fashion”
- Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 44 out of 100
- Based on 36 critics
- Indicating “mixed or average reviews”
- The film’s producer Todd Garner revealed to Collider that there is a possibility of a Johnny Cage-centric standalone film
- Taslim revealed that he is signed on for four films of the series
- This will happen if the reboot is a success
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