Mortal Kombat Producer on Trying to Please Both New and Hardcore Fans

Whenever you work on a property like Mortal Kombat, there’s always going to be a ton of fan expectations that come with it. For any property that has been around for a multitude of years, fans are always going to want their own desires to be satisfied, but at the same time, the project still needs to be accessible to newcomers as well. This balance is something that those working on the Mortal Kombat movie are trying to find as well.

In a recent press event for the upcoming Mortal Kombat movie that ComicBook.com attended, the film’s producer, Todd Garner, talked about how important it has been for the studio to create something that will resonate with a wide audience. “Well look, when you’re making an investment of tens of millions of dollars, you can never just rely on the hardcore fans ever. You have to make a movie that works for people that don’t necessarily know anything about the lore,” Garner expressed plainly. “And I’ve been making movies for 30 years. I was an executive at Disney for 10 years. And then I was an executive at Revolution for five, and I’ve made my own movies for 15. And especially at Disney, when you’re working on Disney IP, you assume everybody loves Disney and everybody knows Disney, but you also have to assume that other people are going to be coming it fresh. And so when you go and set about making these movies, in order to have the widest audience possible and enjoy the entertainment that you’re putting forth, you have to allow people to catch up to the rules, the lore, all the stuff the fans take for granted.”

Garner then went as far to say that he believes this is especially important when developing a movie that is based on a video game. Although the property might be familiar with some fans, to make it truly resonate, it has to be developed as a fully fleshed-out movie first and foremost. “Because that’s when you make video game adaptations that nobody wants to see because you’ve just lost your 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,” Garner said. “So I would say the long-winded answer to your question is the people that made this movie love it, we’re fans, but we’re also filmmakers. And we’ve made a movie for not just hardcore fans, but anybody who loves this movie.”

Mortal Kombat is set to release next month on April 16 and will simultaneously be arriving in theaters and on HBO Max.

How do you feel about what Garner has expressed here in these new quotes? Be sure to let me know either down in the comments or over on Twitter at @MooreMan12.