MORTAL KOMBAT Producer Todd Garner Promises “Most Violent Hand-To-Hand Insane Fight” Ever Filmed
Gamers and horror fans are buzzing over Mortal Kombat, the next cinematic adaptation of the decades-old video game franchise known in equal parts for its violence and intricate mythos. Dread Central was lucky enough to join a media roundtable where we got to talk it up with the film’s producer, Todd Garner. Read the most relevant details revealed below the trailer and synopsis!
Synopsis:
MMA fighter Cole Young, used to getting beaten for money, is unaware of his legacy – or because Emperor Outworld Shang Tsung sent his best warrior, Sub- Zero, an otherworldly Cryomancer, to hunt Cole. Fearing for the safety of his family, Cole sets out to find Sonya Blade and Jax, a special forces major who carries the same strange dragon that Cole was born with. Soon he finds himself in the temple of Lord Raiden, an Elder God and Protector of Earthrealm, who grants sanctuary to those who bear the mark. Here, Cole trains with seasoned warriors Liu Kang, Kung Lao, and devious mercenary Kano, as he prepares to take on Earth’s greatest champions against enemies of Outworld in a high-risk battle across the universe. But will Cole be under enough pressure to unlock his arcane – the immense power in his soul – in time to not only save his family, but also stop Outworld once and for all?
Mortal Kombat is directed by Simon McQuoid from a screenplay penned by Greg Russo; the film stars Joe Taslim (Sub Zero), Ludi Lin (Liu Kang), Jessica McNamee (Sonya Blade), Mehcad Brooks (Jax), Josh Lawson (Kano), Chin Han (Shang Tsung), Hiroyuki Sanada (Scorpion), Tadanobu Asano (Raiden), and Sisi Stringer (Mileena).
When asked about whether producers always planned to make a violent, R-rated Mortal Kombat, Garner told us:
“There was a few things we said out of the gate. One was that it has to be R-rated. Two, it has to be diverse. Three, it has to be faithful to the culture of each character. Four, they’ve got to be martial artists. Five, it would really be good if they were the best martial artists. Not surprisingly it took me seven years to get this movie made [laughs]. I had a lot of demands and it took a minute for them to catch up with my demands and so luckily in the meantime great movies got made like Crazy Rich Asians, and Black Panther, movies that had diverse casts and they went, “You know what? You can make a lot of money with diverse casts!” Wow, imagine that! Making a movie that happens to have a diverse cast in it that’s a great movie. How about that? And they are like, ‘Yeah, let’s do that,’ and I was like ‘Great!’ From the beginning, we knew what this movie was and what it wasn’t going to be and it took seven years to get it made in the way we wanted to get it made. It’s not unusual, for movies to take a long time; it wasn’t like these demands are unusual. What is completely amazing was that Warner Brothers agreed to it all, and New Line. They are amazing partners.”
Garner assured us that even moviegoers who’ve never played Mortal Kombat and aren’t familiar with the mythos can still expect a kick-ass cinematic experience.
“Look, when you are making an investment of tens of millions of dollars you can never just rely on the hardcore fans. You have to make a movie that works for those that don’t necessarily know anything about the lore. It’s the same way when you adapt a book, or you do a true story. You can’t just jump in and assume they know everything, all the backstories, because that’s when you make video game adaptations that nobody wants to see because you’ve lost the humanity. You’ve lost the characters; you’ve lost the traditional filmmaking style, which is setting up your characters, caring about your characters, taking them on an emotional journey, and paying that journey off. The people that made this movie love it. We’re fans but we’re also filmmakers who made a film not just for hardcore fans but for anyone who loves this kind of movie.”
When asked about the most exciting aspect of seeing Mortal Kombat brought back to the big screen, Garner didn’t hesitate:
“Seeing the fighting. I mean again, there is a quote attributed to me on Twitter, [even though] I didn’t say it. Simon said it. Simon set out to make the best fighting movie that’s ever been made. Look, I don’t know, time will tell if he’s done it but the fact that he set that bar and the fact that he cast the best guys and women possibly that could do this movie–not for box office or because they have a huge Twitter following or they are on a huge CW show. But because they were the best. And to see those talented artists go toe-to-toe with very intense fight choreography, in the middle of the outback, was awesome. Then my own personal thing, the second Kabal [played byDaniel Nelson] walked on set I lost my shit, it was amazing.”
On the ways Asian cinema influenced Mortal Kombat, Garner explains:
“For the entire first 13 minutes of the movie, no one speaks English. So what we’re saying to the audience is, ‘You’re not going to get spoon-fed this. You’re not going to get Asain actors speaking English just for your benefit. You have to read, and you have to understand that, ‘Oh, that’s Japanese… Oh, that’s Chinese… Oh, they don’t understand each other… Oh, he’s in love, we just saw the most insane tragedy ever, holy shit…’ It’s very deliberately in that Kiroshawa style. Every single fight in this movie has its own personality and it’s true to not only the game but it’s true to the character. I can’t tell you who’s fighting but there is one of the most brutal fights I’ve ever seen on film and it’s the most violent hand-to-hand insane fight, and it’s not who you’d expect to have the fight. There is also a beautiful operatic fight; there’s swordsmanship. Then you have a moment where, you’ve seen it in the trailer, where Sub-Zero freezes Scorpion,s blood and stabs him with it. So every fight has its own personality and it’s not that we’re aping particular movies, but being faithful to what this fight wants to be. We’re not just on a precienium like the game where it says ‘Fight!’ and you watch two characters. But we’re saying, “Ok, in this fight with these characters, what is the style of fighting that each of them has [and] what is the best set for this fight to happen practically? And then what is the tactic and how should that be filmed?’ So each fight has its own language.”
When asked whether there are Mortal Kombat characters Garner would have liked to include in the film but didn’t, he replied:
“So Johnny Cage is obviously the elephant in the room and there are a number of reasons why Johnny Cage is problematic in this movie, this particular movie, out of the gate. One, he’s a very big personality so he needs his own space. But for the sequel, I want to make the sequel and now I have Johnny Cage who hasn’t been used in the first one. I have a big stick and carrot that maybe will let me have a real Johnny Cage presence in the second one. Secondarily, when you think about Mortal Kombat, when you think about the patina of the movie, it has a very Asian feel to it, and I felt uncomfortable early on having a white male lead kind of lead that charge in the first movie. It just felt Hollywood-ish to me, which is weird because he’s an actor, which also is weird and probably my bias because what I was trying to do was something different and diverse. I love these characters so I thought hard about it. Then you look at what is the movie you want to tell? Do you want to just jump into a movie and have characters kick the shit out of each other, and that’s the movie you’re going to make, and it’s going to be fun and don’t worry about it? Then you don’t start with ten minutes of Asian people speaking in their native tongues and take time to set up a romance and tragedy. So when we decided to do that in that movie it was a more gentle, full, thoughtful character experience, and therefore you need somebody who can serve the purpose of helping you tell that story in a real way. Right or wrong, that’s what we chose to do. We were able to do that list because we took this approach, so just in the terms of looking at volumes of things that people are going to want, that are going to meet their expectations, I think we’ve got that in spades and the way to do that was this form of storytelling.”
Look for Mortal Kombat in theaters and on HBO Max beginning April 16th.
Are you excited to check out Mortal Kombat? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram! You can also carry on the convo with me personally on Twitter @josh_millican.
Categorized:Interviews News
