It was long believed thatMortal Kombatwas being rebooted as a movie franchise, but now one of the actors from the original 1995 big screenvideo gameadaptation claims we’re actually getting a sequel instead. Though, it will arrive with a big twist. Hollywood has always had a very difficult time cracking the code on video game movies, but it hasn’t been for a lack of trying. One of the earliest attempts at this was the firstMortal Kombatlive-action movie. As it turns out, there is apparently still a chance that, after nearly 20 years, a third installment of the original movie series may be on the way. And it sounds like it will be absolutely ridiculous.
Christopher Lambert, who starred in the firstMortal Kombat, recently gave an update on the long rumored, stuck in-development hell reboot/sequel. While speaking withLoaded, the actor claimed that he is in talks to reprise his role as Raiden in a thirdMortal Kombatmovie, and that it will be quite a bit different than the first two. Yes, it wil introduce inter-dimensional time travel to the mix. Here is what he had to say.
“They have a great idea for the third one. It will be very different. We are going to be traveling through time but in a very special way. So imagine characters having a battle in the middle of London and then whoosh, you smash through a window and find yourself on the hood of a New York cab.”
New Line Cinema originally announced plans to revisit the franchise back in 2011, and at the time it sounded like it would be a flat out reboot. They also tappedThe ConjuringdirectorJames Wanto produce the movie last year, with a script fromOren Uziel(22 Jump Street) andDave Callaham(Godzilla). It looks like withLambertbeing involved, they will be doing something of a soft reboot, and that also could be how the time travel element factors into the movie.
Lambertwas very candid in his interview, saying that he didn’t show up for the sequel to the original, titledMortal Kombat: Annihilation, because he didn’t think the script was very good. He goes onto say he didn’t like Part 2, but he did like the first one. Unlike a lot of games,Mortal Kombatdoesn’t have much of a narrative, and that was a challenge that needed to be addressed in the original movies. The actor goes onto say this.
“Mortal Kombat was anarcade game, a beat’em up and because of that they were forced to create a story rather than simply relying on the game’s plot.”
There have been some truly abysmal video game to movie adaptations, andAnnihilationdefinitely falls into that category. But oddly enough, the firstMortal Kombat movieisn’t truly that far from what could be a very good video game movie. It is certainly cheesy, and the effects don’t hold up at all, but it is easy to see how they could take that template, update it a bit and usemodern effectsto get it right. But the whole strange time travel thing they seemingly have come up with may already be a bit of a signal that the concept forMortal Kombat 3is straight up off the rails. That could also be quite fun as well, so that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
The firstMortal Kombatmade $122 million back in 1995, which isn’t bad money given what was considered to be a solid box office performance at the time. This may be the year that video game movies finally find their footing.The Angry Birds MovieandWarcrafthave both managed to make good money, withWarcraftbecoming the highest grossing video game movie ever at this point. Though critical acclaim is still something that alludes these adaptations.Assassin’s Creedcould break that trend later this year, but if that succeeds as well, pretty much every studio will be jumping on the video game adaptation train. That is maybe why New Line is moving ahead withMortal Kombat 3, but we’ll have to see if it actually comes to pass.
