Variety reports that Simon McQuoid has been tapped to direct New Line’s big-screen Mortal Kombat reboot. James Wan (The Conjuring, Aquaman) is set to produce the film alongside Michael Clear, Todd Garner, and Jeremy Stein. The most recent draft of the script was written by Greg Russo.
Though this would mark McQuoid’s feature debut, he is no stranger to bringing video games to life having directed commercials for both PlayStation and Halo, which you can find below.
“The key here is to try and do it right,” Wan previously told us about the film. “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.”
The first Mortal Kombat video game was developed by Midway Games and released in 1992. The storyline sees a diverse range of fighters hailing from eighteen different realms become pitted against one another in an epic tournament. Quite a few sequels followed the original game with the most recent, Mortal Kombat X, being released last year.
Two Mortal Kombat movies have already been released. The first, simply titled Mortal Kombat, was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson and saw release in 1995. It was followed two years later with a sequel, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, which also paved the way for two television series: the animated Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm and the live-action Mortal Kombat: Konquest. Two web series have been released based on the property as well from director Kevin Tancharoen.
The new Mortal Kombat movie will follow a male protagonist who becomes drawn into the interdimensional tournament, and who begins to realize his true potential as a result of the experience.
