Mortal Kombat, released in 1995, is admittedly not a great movie. Still, the film stands as perhaps the greatest video game movie ever made — or at least the most fun. Now, with the video game franchise in the midst of a major resurgence in popularity thanks to the blockbuster Mortal Kombat 11, news comes that a Mortal Kombat reboot film is finally, officially in the works.
Aquaman director/horror maestro James Wan is producing the new film, and he’s tapped Simon McQuoid to direct off a script by Greg Russo. The movie will be unrelated to 1995’s Mortal Kombat and that movie’s dreadful sequel, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, and will instead offer a brand new take on the ultra-violent fighting game franchise. The previous Mortal Kombat movies, both made in the ’90s, were geared toward kids because that’s who played Mortal Kombat, which first debuted in 1992. As a result, the films were PG-13 and featured none of the videogames’ trademark gore. But with the current iterations of the game largely played by nostalgic adults and not little kids, odds are the new movie will be geared toward them and will come with the appropriate R-rating to accommodate its hopefully numerous fatalities.
No cast or plot details have been announced yet, but the movie is set to start pre-production this month in Australia, with filming slated to begin later this year. Warner Bros., which is producing the film, has also announced a release date of March 5, 2021, according to Variety. That’s the same release date as Sony’s Masters of the Universe reboot, which could set up a major conundrum for action movie-loving millennials. Fight!
