The new Mortal Kombat movie release date is official: the fighting game adaptation will beat your local theater into a pile of bouncing rib cages on March 5, 2021. That gives Warner Bros. just under two years to take the project from the script to the screen, and they're already set to begin filming in South Australia in June.
With what we know about how much time the Mortal Kombat games dedicate to cringe-inducing gore, I estimate that a faithful adaptation would spend about two weeks filming and then roughly a year and a half painstakingly rendering the inside of Kano's braincase.
This Mortal Kombat adaptation is being touted as a reboot; you shouldn't expect a direct sequel to the events of 1995's Mortal Kombat or 1997's Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. You shouldn't have expected that anyway because both of those movies are ridiculous. The Mortal Kombat games have had their own soft reboot since then with a new continuity following on from Mortal Kombat (2011) up through Mortal Kombat 11. Said continuity is also ridiculous, but in a way that doesn't make you question your passion for both the video game franchise and life as a whole.
Screenwriter Greg Russo (who is also writing the upcoming Resident Evil movie reboot) is handling the script, so we'll have to wait and see which direction he takes Earthrealm and all the rest. Aquaman and Saw director James Wan is producing the new Mortal Kombat, and Simon McQuoid (who did a bunch of those Call of Duty: WW2 live-action commercials) is directing.
See what other adaptations are on the way with our list of upcoming video game movies and start working out which ones will be good and which ones will be so-bad-they're-good. Or while you're here, see what's big in games and entertainment this week with our latest Release Radar video.
