The live-action Mortal Kombat movie from Warner Bros. is going to be pretty faithful to the original source material. What does this mean? It's simple, really: we can expect to see the series' trademark fatalities translated to the big screen, with very little of the grit, gore, and blood of the video game finishing moves held back.
Mortal Kombat screenwriter Greg Russo confirmed as much over a year ago, promising fans that the project would receive an R-rating for its approach to violence. This, of course, is exactly what we want to see from a Mortal Kombat movie.
"Since it's already been stated by other members of the team, I'm gonna put this one to bed," he said at the time. "MK WILL be R-Rated and for the first time EVER, FATALITIES will FINALLY be on the big screen (and no I'm not gonna say which ones) You'll just have to wait for the movie & see!"
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In an encouraging development, actor Lewis Tan, who plays a currently unconfirmed role in the movie, explained to ComicBook that some of the fatalities he saw while on set actually made him feel physically sick.
"Let me just say this, there were some days on set that I felt sick. I'm not kidding," Tan said. "They did not... They did not hold back."
Russo also reiterated that most of the fatalities we see in the film will be ones we're familiar with from the games. "We're not going to come up with some new things that we haven't seen before," he said. He also added that while it is going to be violent, the producers needed to find a line between entertaining and needlessly nasty.
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"You want to be truthful, but you also don't want to be so ridiculous and gratuitous that you may turn people off in the wrong way," he explained. "So I would just say that it's going to be faithful to the games and it's going to earn its R-rating."
Mortal Kombat finally started production in Adelaide, South Australia back in September last year, and will be the feature directorial debut of Simon McQuoid, known in the film industry for his work on commercials for PlayStation, Halo and Range Rover. He's joined by an incredibly impressive cast, including actor and martial artist Joe Taslim (The Raid), Ludi Lin (Power Rangers, Black Mirror), Supergirl actor Mehcad Brooks, and Chin Han (The Dark Knight).
The movie is currently slated to hit cinemas on January 15th, 2021... but with everything going on in the world right now, we wouldn't be surprised if that got shuffled around a little.
Featured Image Credit: NetherRealmTopics: Warner Bros, Mortal Kombat, NetherRealm