Mortal Kombat fans everywhere can rejoice, as the movie reboot's screenwriter confirms the new film will be R-rated and include fatalities. First launching in 1992, the Mortal Kombat video game series has been a popular one for almost three decades now, give or take a few down periods. Every time people start to think Mortal Kombat is starting to lose its edge, the franchise manages to rebound, and win the hearts and minds of fighting game fans all over again. However, attempts to translate Mortal Kombat to the silver screen haven't been so fortunate.
While 1995's first Mortal Kombat movie was a box office hit, critics hated it, and video game purists were disappointed in the film being rated PG-13. Whereas the games made their name initially for being bloody, gory, and featuring extremely graphic Fatality finishing moves, the movie was very limited in what it could show, and became a mostly bloodless affair. This was compounded by 1997's Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, which changed directors, writers, and much of the cast, leading to a terrible sequel with even less blood, and none of the original's B-movie charm to fall back on.
Annihilation's failure with both fans and critics led to the Mortal Kombat film franchise seemingly performing a Fatality on itself, although the venerable fighting game series is finally returning to theaters in 2021, in the form of a movie reboot produced by James Wan. Now, Mortal Kombat fans who might be worried about the new movie repeating the old one's mistakes can rest easy, as reboot writer Greg Russo took to Twitter to confirm that the Simon McQuoid-directed project will be R-rated and include the gory Fatalities that made the series famous.
As Russo alludes to, other past statements by those involved with the new Mortal Kombat movie have suggested that it would be R-rated, but that doesn't make it any less comforting to see it stated unequivocally. Also, now longtime fans have reason to spend their time until 2021 trying to guess or just hopefully imagining what specific Fatalities will make their way into the reboot. Perhaps they'll go with the classics, and include things like Sub-Zero ripping out his opponent's spine, or Kano performing impromptu heart surgery on those unlucky enough to lose to him.
At this point though, it's still not clear exactly what the new Mortal Kombat's story will be about. While the games have never really been too complex plot-wise - after all, they all have to be built around winning a fighting tournament - it'll be interesting to see which era of the series the movie chooses to base itself on, and which characters are included. It's hard to imagine certain iconic Mortal Kombat fighters won't be in the movie, such as Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Liu Kang, and Johnny Cage. Right now, the only confirmed inclusion is Sub-Zero, who'll be played by The Raid: Redemption's Joe Taslim.
Source: Greg Russo/Twitter
