Mortal Kombat Producer on How the Movie Relates to the Games

The Mortal Kombat video games have been around since 1992, but the upcoming film will approach things from a new starting point. During a Mortal Kombat set visit, producer Todd Garner discussed the upcoming movie and how the filmmakers tried to make the world easily accessible to newcomers, as opposed to following the continuity established in the games. The film will obviously use elements from the series to flesh out the overall world, but fans shouldn’t expect things to adhere to a specific timeline from the games. Garner says the goal was to approach the film as its own thing.

“If you play the game and you expect us to be caught up with the game, it’s impossible. Because even if you tried today to catch up to the game, Mortal Kombat XII is going to be somewhere else,” said Garner. “So we made a conscious decision on… I’ve been on this movie for five years, they’ve been developing it for nine. And so we made a conscious decision, just to try to make a classic movie that can set up the world for everybody.”

All adaptations have to make some changes in order to fit a different format, but there’s also a balance that must be struck to maintain the heart of the original property. It will be interesting to see how closely the Mortal Kombat reboot adheres to the games, and where it deviates! The first trailer already established that Jax will lose his arms in battle with Sub-Zero, which is not the way it played out in the storyline from the games. However, there will be plenty of elements that fans can expect to be faithfully executed, particularly the nationality of the film’s cast.

“Everybody’s nationality is correct. If they were a Chinese character in the game, they’re a Chinese actor,” said Garner.

That was not always the case for the 1995 film. Notably, the original Mortal Kombat cast Christopher Lambert in the role of Raiden. The Mortal Kombat reboot will be much more faithful in that regard!

The Mortal Kombat film reboot will release in theaters and on HBO Max April 16th. Readers can find out more by checking out the rest of ComicBook.com’s coverage of the Mortal Kombat reboot right here.

Are you looking forward to the Mortal Kombat reboot? Are you kounting down the days until the film releases? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk about all things gaming!