The MORTAL KOMBAT Reboot Won't Be Rushed Says James Wan

While at the Summer TCA Press Tour for his new Magyver reboot/prequel on CBS, director James Wan also fielded questions about the status of the upcoming Mortal Kombat movie from New Line Cinema. Currently, the franchise is experiencing a high in popularity thanks to the overhaul of gameplay mechanics by NetherRealm.  Progress is still happening according to Wan, though he's pretty busy with Warner Bros.' Aquaman so that begs the question of who exactly is making the progress?

"It's still cooking away. With that particular project, that's a really cool property that I loved growing up 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."


"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."

Previously, television director Kevin Tancharoen (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) was attached to direct a Mortal Kombat film following his well-received, gritty fan film that took Mortal Kombat lore and applied a new level of realism. From there, Tancharoen was commissioned to direct a two season web-series,Mortal Kombat: Legacy.  Following the conclusion of the second season in 2013 Tancharoen announced that he had decided not to direct the feature film adaptation citing creative differences.  He would go on to direct episodes of Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. In August 2015, it was announced that James Wan had signed on to produce the film and spearhead its development.  A year later, we've heard very little on the project until Wan spoke out today.