With the Mortal Kombat video game franchise nearing its 30th anniversary, there is no shortage of material to be explored in potential film and television projects.
Todd Garner, the producer of the upcoming Mortal Kombat cinematic reboot, has hopes that the film does well enough beyond the new movie to lead to a full-on multimedia franchise. In a roundtable interview attended by CBR, Garner teased some of his dream projects with a scope that takes cues from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
"I want do nine hours [like] WandaVision for this thing: Maybe it's just the monks, Liu Kang and Kung Lao, nine hours of that. There's so much to draw from and we were trying to be intelligent as possibly could to tell a story that you could just come in and sit down and not know what Mortal Kombat is and enjoy it and love it as much as the guy that's played the game for 30 years and know everything about everything...there are certain things that I would've loved in the movie but couldn't because of cost, practicality and things like that," Garner explained. "Our goal and our prayer is that this movie does well enough, sets up enough and is satisfying enough for fans and everybody that we can sit down with the Warner Bros. execs, put a white board up, like Kevin Feige did, and map out the universe; years and years of this!"
In addition to fan-favorite fighters Liu Kang and Kung Lao, Garner has spinoff hopes for characters like Kabal, noting he would "love" to make a solo film centered on the ninja. Beyond the martial arts monks and ninjas, Garner observed a whole war movie could be made following Jax and Sonja Blade as part of a potential Mortal Kombat cinematic universe.
Directed by Simon McQuoid and produced by James Wan, Mortal Kombat stars Lewis Tan as Cole Young, Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade, Josh Lawson as Kano, Tadanobu Asano as Lord Raiden, Mehcad Brooks as Jackson "Jax" Bridges, Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Chin Han as Shang Tsung, Joe Taslim as Bi-Han and Sub-Zero, Hiroyuki Sanada as Hanzo Hasashi and Scorpion, Max Huang as Kung Lao, Sisi Stringer as Mileena, Matilda Kimber as Emily Young and Laura Brent as Allison Young. The film arrives in theaters and on HBO Max April 16.