Mortal Kombat is a fighting game series which began all the way back in 1992. Consisting of many installments and having existed for so long, the series includes a plethora of iconic characters.
New Line and Warner Bros. are currently working on a live-action movie based on the franchise and its writer recently participated in an interview with
Comicbook.com in which he discussed the project. Greg Russo is responsible for the script of the
Mortal Kombat movie — and also the
Saints Row and
Resident Evil adaptations.
During the interview, Russo teased that the film will feature quite a few familiar faces and even went as far as to name-drop a couple of characters. He explained that the
Mortal Kombat film is comparable to
The Avengers — only without the preceeding films which focused on individual characters — in that there are a lot of characters to juggle and do justice.
Yeah. You know the characters are ... One of the trickiest things I think with adapting the properties are there are so many characters, right. I mean there are, I think there's 70 something characters in this and we don't have the ability to stagger these films like the MCU does, right? We can't do a Sonya movie and then do a Liu Kang movie. So we're forced right into Avengers mode off the bat. So when that happens from a story perspective, you're naturally going to have to juggle a lot of different characters, and you realize very soon that you only have so much room in, what's hopefully, story one. I mean we only -- our mantra as the team behind this movie is always kind of, movie one first, you know, let's just make that great. Let's not think about anything else.
Though Russo simply mentioning the likes of Sonya and Liu Kang isn't confirmation that they will feature in the film, it's worth noting the characters that sprung to his mind whilst discussing the live-action Mortal Kombat movie. He went on to explain that some characters will need to be left out, so that those which are included have room to breathe.
So you only have so much room. And what one of the hardest things has been from a writing standpoint is saying, okay, who makes sense for this first film? And who makes more sense for what would be maybe a subsequent chapter of this world? Because once you really get into it, you realize that... I guess what I should say is, I don't think anybody wants to turn this into a, actually, let me back up and say this. I think a lesson we learned from Annihilation, the second film, is the more you try to cram into a movie, the more characters you try to cram in, I think they end up just getting lost and they feel like they're just thrown in for no reason. And that was something that we really wanted to avoid.
Characters will only feature in the film if they're able to be done justice. With only a few spots available, Russo had to wisely choose who should fill them. He teases that the film will include the expected major players and if there's a character you consider to be a major player that hasn't made the cut, they're likely being saved for a future installment.
If we're going to put characters into this, we want to make sure that they had a chance to really be developed, that they're fleshed out, and that they play a real role in the story. So that's kind of, in terms of the characters, that was, in terms of the actual choosing of the characters, it's just gonna be a lot of familiar faces for sure. Everyone, I think most of the characters that you know and love will hopefully will get in there. If a character is not in there, it's because it was kind of decided that it's better off saved for a later point where they can actually really shine and be developed appropriately.
Thus far, the only character confirmed to be appearing in the live-action Mortal Kombat movie is Sub Zero. Last month, it was announced that Joe Taslim will play the iconic character. So, based on that and all of the above, it's safe to say that Scorpion will be included. As for who else, we'll just have to wait and see.
The live-action Mortal Kombat movie will arrive in theaters on the March 5th, 2021.