One of the most popular fighting games in the world is Mortal Kombat, thrilling gamers since 1992 with its bloody, unflinchingly violent gameplay as martial artists from different dimensions converge for an epic fighting tournament. The iconic franchise has received a new cinematic adaptation in Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge, bringing the deliriously gory action to animation in a feature-length movie that reimagines the events of the original video game.
In an interview with CBR, screenwriter Jeremy Adams discusses bringing the franchise's signature fire and fury to animation, why the movie's perspective is largely told from Scorpion's perspective and what moments he was proud to leave his own personal touch on to the franchise.
This film adapts the original game, which is coming up on its 30th anniversary. What sparked your imagination and inspired you with this franchise?
Jeremy Adams: Well, for me, Mortal Kombat has always had a weird place in my life. Growing up in the 80s, I didn't really have a console and Street Fighter had an arcade cabinet at the local pizza joint that I would haunt. And, suddenly one day, this Mortal Kombat cabinet showed up and I remember going "Holy cow! What is this thing?" And back in those days you didn't have YouTube or anything to learn the moves, you had to figure them out for yourself. And I remember seeing somebody do a Fatality and thinking "We should not be allowed to play this game!" I was just a little kid, I was kind of looking over my shoulder waiting for my mom to show up.
But it was such a great, weird amalgamation of Enter the Dragon meets Big Trouble in Little China, with all these big, fantastical elements to it; there was a horror element to it and those are all things that I love, I love genre. I played the game, obviously, and it's been with us ever since. I remember going to see the first film, and I love martial arts, so it definitely struck a chord for me.
And when this thing came up -- because I love talking about karate and martial arts and horror movies and sci-fi so much -- [the producers] were like "We really know one person around here that would be able to take a crack at this thing." And [Warner Bros. Animation President] Sam Register was very kind in giving me the opportunity to come up with a take on it. And [producer Rick Morales] and I we've worked together and we work very well together and we really got to gather and talk about this story and talk about how can we tell this story that's been told in many different incarnations and tell this from a different angle. And I think being a father and Rick being a father, the idea of losing your child or your family is such a huge fear. And as I started getting more and more into the mythology and reading different versions, I was really drawn to Scorpion's story. It's almost this really extreme version of Taken: "You have killed my family and I'm going to break out of Hell to get my revenge!" And that, to me, was like "I get this!" And that was the sort of seed that we had, where we wanted to go -- to tell this story from Hanzo's perspective and show Scorpion's journey. And I hope we did that!
It's clear from jump you're coming at this with the gloves off; no quarter given.
[laughs] I have to give credit to the art guys. I came up with a pretty violent script -- it was pretty, aggressively violent to the point that they told me to tone it down -- but the minute that I handed it over and Rick, [director Ethan Spaulding] and the storyboard guys took it, even at my most violent, they doubled that. I remember them showing me a clip and I was like "Oh! What's happening?!" [laughs]. I was screaming! And I love it because Rick and I always wanted to make a midnight movie; we wanted to make something people would watch and scream "Oh! That's too much!" So that was a thrill for someone like me who has done predominantly younger animation; this is a chance to really enjoy it and probably more in line with the stuff I like to write. To see Rick and those guys really blow it out of the water with the animation, as a writer, all you want is it get [stepped up] by the people who get it next and, boy, did they do that.
One of the big things in the film is you've got the x-ray hits straight from the video games. Was that something that was in the script or was that something the director and animation team added later?
They showed us some animatics and Rick wanted to be very intentional -- even before I started writing -- in using different Fatalities and different things from the games. And the x-ray hit [from the more recent games] I remembered as kind of a gimmick introduced by Sonny Chiba's [Japanese grindhouse film] Street Fighter. They did that where Sonny Chiba would kick a guy in the head and you'd see the guy's neck cracking! And that was fun, that was like the early 70s.
And Mortal Kombat has always been a strange blend of martial arts movies so now we have, so many years later, that I was able to take something like that and add it, plus, Rick's intention to add as many callbacks to the games as we can. Before we started, Rick would have an animation of something [he] wanted to do, so I would put those in the script at various times and let them suss it out with what they wanted to do.
You invoked Street Fighter earlier and I have to ask: Is Sonya Blade's introduction and the smashed car a reference to the bonus stage in that franchise?
[laughs] If it is, it's a sly one from the animation team, not something that I added. That's such a great scene and something that's exciting for me is, when I'm writing something, I cling to the voice of somebody and kind of write from that perspective. And when I write from Sonya Blade's, in particular, I just wanted Jennifer Carpenter for her character because I just really love her work in Dexter and I thought that type of persona is really what I want to hit when it comes to Sonya Blade. So when they got her to do it, that was everything.
So, to answer your question, I don't know if [that Street Fighter reference] was intentional or not...but knowing how smart Rick and Ethan are, I wouldn't doubt it.
With this, you're working alongside franchise co-creator Ed Boon. How was that entire experience?
Incredible, because I think someone like Ed, who has the ability to put the brakes on anything because we're in his house playing in his toy box -- he could go "I don't like this or that" -- he was really game. And from the interactions that I've had with him, he's always been additive and not subtractive, and he's always been very much in favor and willing to outside the box to do little variations on a scene. Again, none of what we're trying to do is to undercut what's been done before, I think we're just trying to do an alternative take, and he was just so supportive of it; he understood it.
And he was willing to not just go along with it, but be a cheerleader for it and I've heard him talk about how much he loved this version of the film. And there can't be anything more gratifying, right? This is somebody that co-created it! This is what we've been waiting for and, as somebody who's part of the creative team, that's all you want to hear. You're almost going for an audience of one, like "Please don't go Alan Moore on me! Don't say you want nothing to do with this ever again!" But he was incredible.
What is something that you were proud to leave your own mark on the franchise revamping or reimagining?
For me, I'm such a fan of 80s action movies and there is that quality to this one. I think there's that high pace; that it continues and continues. It's a variation, maybe, of being able to explore Scorpion than has been in the past in a lot of ways. That, for me, that I'll walk away and go "I got to flesh that out and give it nuance and explain things that haven't been explained before." I really like that and I also really like the Johnny Cage aspect that we really hold back on how good he is until the very end of the movie. It's such a slow burn, in a way, and adding the trademark, 80s one-liners and then giving it to Joel McHale, who is unbelievably dynamite. You give him a line and he'll do the line better than you wrote it, and then he'll ad-lib a line even better than you could think of writing in. It's remarkable and now that's all I can hear from Johnny Cage is Joel McHale's voice.
Just to change gears completely, you've also got LEGO DC - Shazam! Magic and Monsters coming out this month. This isn't your first LEGO DC film so how was it playing with the Shazam property?
It's so much fun and, like you've said, I've done a lot of LEGO properties for the DC Universe; I think I've done six or seven now. And I do feel like these straight direct-to-video LEGO DC movies, I feel like people are sleeping on them a little bit. But I have two kids -- I have three-year old and a six-year old -- and to be able to make something that I can watch with them is such a joy. First of all, that is paramount, that's amazing.
With Shazam, in our last one -- LEGO DC: Batman - Family Matters -- we bring Billy Batson into the universe with that one last summer and we teased Shazam at the end of that. I love Shazam, I love Captain Marvel and I love the live-action one that came out. This is kind of a classic version of Shazam and I'm always up for crazy stuff and Rick came up with this crazy idea "What if we did two stories in one?" And then we hit upon the idea that making him a kid and I think that opened up the story in a way that we haven't seen in the actors playing Billy Batson doing kid voices of themselves. It's just super-hearting and gratifying as a writer to take this in a different direction and in a story that hasn't been told this way and I enjoyed the heck out of it.
Billy Batson is the ultimate child wish fulfillment -- say the magic word and become a superhero -- doing it in the LEGO form is just so great. And let's not forget Sean Astin voices Shazam so I was sitting there during the voice recording thinking "A Goonie is totally reading my lines! Samwise is there and he couldn't be nicer!" And as an uber geek growing up, I just couldn't believe this is happening right now. And he's just perfect; he knocks it out of the park.
One last question: You've been working on the last season of Supernatural. How has that experience been crafting the last adventures for Sam and Dean Winchester?
They let me in with open arms and it's a weird show because it's not a real writers' room kind of show, it's individuals with different pitches, and I got to do stuff that was kind of separate from the mythology but have it be integrated into the mythology. The other writers are dynamite and they treated me with so much respect and were so gracious welcoming me to the last season. After we did the [Scooby-Doo crossover], it was a great way for me to walk into live-action. Like animation, it has its ups and its downs but, to be part of the last season of a show that I, as a fan, watched the first episode when it came on fifteen years ago, and love and get to write for, is a miracle.
And, for me, it's bittersweet because, by the time my second episode was up and broken out into writing, I might've had 26 new ideas up on a board. I was just like "I'm just getting started, guys! Can we go again?" I just wanted to keep going on, I had so many other ideas, but I was so happy they let me take part in a couple of them and put my little stamp on them. Again, it's like I said earlier: I just want to add something to the toy box and expand on the universe and throw a couple ideas in there, so who knows what happens to it next or years from now, but somebody somewhere will get inspired by what I've done so they can create their own thing.
Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge stars Joel McHale as Johnny Cage, Jennifer Carpenter as Sonya Blade, Jordan Rodrigues as Scorpion & Hanzo Hasashi, Steve Blum as Sub-Zero, Artt Butler as Shang Tsung, Darin De Paul as Quan Chi, Robin Atkin Downes as Kano, David B. Mitchell as Raiden, Ike Amadi as Jax Briggs, Kevin Michael Richardson as Goro, and Grey Griffin as Kitana & Satoshi Hasashi. The film is set to be released on Digital on April 14, and Blu-ray and DVD on April 28.