‘Mortal Kombat’ may slay movie audiences again as James Wan has reportedly signed on to produce an adaptation of the popular video game into a live action film.  Earlier this year, Wan’s ‘Furious 7’ set record and became the fourth highest grossing movie ever.  (It has since slipped to #5.  Boo hoo!)  Wan has also had previous success with horror films ‘Saw’, ‘Insidious’ and ‘Insidious 2’ and ‘The Conjuring’ with a second ‘Conjuring’ due next year.  He is also attached to a very high profile super hero flick, DC’s ‘Aquaman’ due in 2018.  Currently, talk is that Wan will only be producing, but who knows how things will unfold as things progress?

The script as it stands was written by Oren Uziel who wrote the short ‘Mortal Kombat: Rebirth’ as well as ’22 Jump Street’ and the upcoming ‘Men In Black 4’ and Dave Callaham, who wrote the video game adaptation ‘Doom’ as well as ‘Expendables’ and last year’s reboot of ‘Godzilla.’

The popular fighter franchise ‘Mortal Kombat’ has sold over 35 million units since the first game debuted in 1992.  The game has continued to evolve with technology and the mythology has grown as more and more characters have been added to the mix.

Two live action movies have already been made, 1995’s ‘Mortal Kombat’ and 1997’s ‘Mortal Kombat: Annihilation’ and were moderately successful, but are largely forgotten today.  In its heyday, there was even a live action TV series, ‘Mortal Kombat: Konquest’ and animated series ‘Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm’.  There was even a techno album ghost recorded by early techno hit makers The Lords of Acid, with the theme song becoming a club hit in 1994.

But the game franchise has survived the 90s and continues to flourish in various forms today.  Often game-based movies lack quality and as a result don’t perform well at the box office, but if any has the chance to break into the mainstream, it’s this one, since it would now appeal to multiple generations, adults who grew up playing it and kids just discovering it.

Are you ready to step into the arena?  Do you think ‘Mortal Kombat’ will make a good movie?

Sources: Coming Soon