Mortal Kombat producer says R rating was top priority

The first trailer for the Warner Bros. red band Mortal combat The reboot of the film fell violently on its R rating. At that first glance, Sub-Zero dismembered Jax’s arms using ice magic, Scorpion threw a kunai on the back of an assassin’s skull and Kano pulled the Reptilian heart still beating . It would be a cinematic sin in the modern era, when the most demanding fans are generously attended to, making a Mortal combat movie without extreme graphic violence.

But it seems just as challenging to convince a big studio like Warner Bros. to invest in the production of a video game film rated for minors. Still, producers James Wan and Todd Garner and feature film director Simon McQuoid succeeded. It was part persistence, part product of the time, Garner said in a roundtable interview this week.

“Basically, there were five things that James and I said – you can call them demands, you can call them really polite questions – we said, ‘There are five things that are really important to us in this film.’ One, it has to be rated for minors, ”said Garner. “Two, it has to be a diverse cast.

“Three, they have to be [legitimate] for tradition and backstory, and each character. Four is that they need to be true martial artists. And five are we going to do these [specific] characters.”

Oh, and Garner told Warner Bros. executives, his film will have no “movie stars”. (Fans of The Raid Star Joe Taslim may disagree with this assessment, but Garner’s point remains: Mortal combat is not a film directed by famous Hollywood actors.)

“And they said, ‘Cool,'” he said. “Seven years later, we made the film [laughs]. So, perhaps they are not the smartest things to say. But we did. And we continue with that. “

Image: Warner Bros. Entertainment

Garner said a number of factors – the main one being the potential for a lot of money – helped to convince Warner Bros. that limiting the potential audience for a Mortal Kombat film by making it graphically violent was not the worst idea.

“Fortunately, films like Crazy Rich Asians came and Black Panther and these diverse cast films that killed around the world and earned hundreds of millions of dollars, ”said Garner. “And you know, movies like Dead Pool and John Wick that have been rated for minors [400] or 500 million dollars. And Warner said, ‘Yes, OK.’ Then, in a strange way, the world realized something that James and I had been talking about for seven years. “

He added: “I just saw when you are boxing something on the PG-13 [rating] it shouldn’t be and it sucks. It sucks to do. It’s not fun. And people see through it. […] But for something called Mortal combat, that the game makes people pull out each other’s spines. Very difficult to say, ‘Yes, we will be fine with the PG-13.’ “

Image: Warner Bros. Entertainment

Garner said the decision to add an original character, Cole Young, who is new to the franchise, was a component of the five demands mentioned. The producers didn’t want another white guy in a diverse Asian-led cast to be the hero. In other words, casting Christopher Lambert as the Japanese thunder god Raiden would not work in his film.

Young, played by Chinese-English actor Lewis Tan, is a mixed martial arts fighter who enters the mystical Mortal Kombat tournament, entering a strange world of wizards, half-dragons and undead superninjas. But he is also the insertion of the public, someone who can ask the questions that moviegoers unfamiliar with the Mortal Kombat tradition would be afraid to ask.

“I just felt that if I was getting the chance to make a film with a diverse cast, it seemed strange to me to have a white actor, literally Johnny Cage, being the hero of the story,” said Garner. “It seemed strange, all of a sudden, to be like, ‘Oh, by the way, the white guy is going to arrive and be the hero of the movie.’ And we already have Kano in the movie, which is so good – he’s my big carrot for the sequel. “

Mortal combat will be released in theaters and on HBO Max on April 16.