While the last few Mortal Kombat games have sold incredibly well, the franchise hasn’t had much of a chance to share the success on the silver screen since its 1995 film debut and its maligned 1997 sequel, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. The next film simply titled Mortal Kombat planned for 2021 is supposed to end that MK movie drought and instead of being delayed like most video game adaptations, it has instead moved forward. The Mortal Kombat movie release date is now January 15, 2021 instead of March 5.
Deadline reported this bump earlier today, which is where WB also said that The Matrix 4 would hit screens on May 21, 2021 (which is also when the Keanu Reeves-led John Wick: Chapter 4 will be released). The R-rated Mortal Kombat will come to theaters the same day as the Simon Kinberg-directed spy thriller 355, which stars heavyweights like Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Penélope Cruz, and Fan Bingbing. Given how both are action movies, utting both films on the same day serves as some sort of counterprogramming.
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The Mortal Kombat movie will be directed by Simon McQuoid, the man who directed the Long Live Play “Michael” PS3 commercial from 2011. James Wan, known for directing the first Saw movie and the 2018’s Aquaman film, will be producing Mortal Kombat alongside Todd Garner, who co-produced both Paul Blart installments. The cast has also been mostly revealed, although most of them are likely not household names.
The most acclaimed, however, would probably be Joe Taslim (who is best known for his role in action classic The Raid). Taslim is set to play Sub-Zero and was also the first person to officially cast.
The movie recent began production in September 2019. A few people from the cast have even recently been posting videos or photos of them performing Mortal Kombat-esque moves (without the gore) or them working out to get jaxed jacked for the role. Mehcad Brooks, the actor portraying Jax, recently stated that this week was the last week of shooting and a similar sentiment was echoed by his co-star, Lewis Tan.
