Mortal Kombat Writer Explains the Lessons Learned From Mortal Kombat: Annihilation

1995's Mortal Kombat is a cult-classic and widely considered one of the best video game movies of [...]

By Tyler Fischer

kombat
(Photo: NetherRealm Studios)

1995's Mortal Kombat is a cult-classic and widely considered one of the best video game movies of all-time, despite an underwhelming critical response. It's follow-up two years later -- Mortal Kombat: Annihilation -- comes in on the complete other side of the spectrum. It has its fans, but it's widely considered among the worst video game movies, and a steep decline from its predecessor. It has a two percent on Rotten Tomatoes. That's how bad it is.

That all said, Greg Russo -- the man responsible for writing the upcoming Mortal Kombat reboot -- recently revealed the lessons that have been learned from Annihilation. For example, while the movie will feature fan-favorite characters, it won't be brimming with them. Unlike Annihilation, characters aren't going to be thrown into the movie just for the sake of being there.

"One of the trickiest things I think with adapting the properties are there are so many characters, right,"said Russo in an interview with ComicBook.com. "I mean there are, I think there's 70 something characters in this and we don't have the ability to stagger these films like the MCU does, right? We can't do a Sonya movie and then do a Liu Kang movie. So we're forced right into Avengers mode off the bat. So when that happens from a story perspective, you're naturally going to have to juggle a lot of different characters and you'll realize very soon that you only have so much room in, what's hopefully, story one. I mean we only, our mantra as the team behind this movie is always kind of, movie one first, you know, let's just make that great. Let's not think about anything else."

Russo continued:

"So you only have so much room. And what one of the hardest things has been from a writing standpoint is saying, okay, who makes sense for this first film? And who makes more sense for what would be maybe a subsequent chapter of this world? Because once you really get into it, you realize that... I guess what I should say is, I don't think anybody wants to turn this into a, actually, let me back up and say this. I think a lesson we learned from Annihilation, the second film, is the more you try to cram into a movie, the more characters you try to cram in, I think they end up just getting lost and they feel like they're just thrown in for no reason. And that was something that we really wanted to avoid."

Russo further added that if a character is going to make the cut, they will get the chance to be developed, fleshed out, and interwoven into the story. And if a character doesn't make the cut at first, it's probably because they are being saved for later, when they can incorporated into the plot in a way that does said character justice.

Mortal Kombat is set to release on March 5, 2021. For more news, media, and information on the upcoming movie, be sure to check out all of our previous and extensive coverage of it by clicking right here.

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