The First Mortal Kombat Movie Trailer Is Here
The first trailer for the new Mortal Kombat trailer has been released, showcasing Earth's greatest warriors and the rivalry between Scorpion and Sub-Zero.
This article is more than 2 years old
After decades in development, a third Mortal Kombat film is coming out in less than two months. Warner Bros. has only given audiences slight glimpses so far as to what we can expect from this newest installment, but today, Warner Bros. has finally released the first full Mortal Kombat trailer.
Check out the Mortal Kombat trailer right here:
The debut of the restricted Mortal Kombat trailer is full of the violence and insane characters that fans of the games can expect. The film follows the series newcomer Cole Young (Lewis Tan), who was born with a mysterious dragon birthmark. He is told that this is no birthmark, but an invitation to a centuries-old tournament to defend the Earthrealm from Outworld.
This first Mortal Kombat trailer shows off quite a few of the challengers we can expect from this new Mortal Kombat adaptation. On his journey to this tournament, he is joined by Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), Kano (Josh Lawson), Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), Jackson “Jax” Briggs (Mehcad Brooks), Kung Lao (Max Huang), and Liu Kang (Ludi Lin). In addition to these main characters, the trailer also shows quick glimpses of Shang Tsung, Mileena, Goro, and Reptile. Of course, the trailer also includes plenty of moments that fans will remember, like a character stating “Finish Him!” and Kano’s fatality of ripping the heart out of his opponent. Notably absent, however, is Johnny Cage, who seems to be the only character from the original game missing from this iteration of the story.
Though the Mortal Kombat trailer is mostly fighting, director Simon McQuoid has said that Mortal Kombat will also explore the origins and rivalry between Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) and Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada). This trailer shows Scorpion before he turned into the ninja warrior, and Sub-Zero in Earthrealm, covering a building in ice, and freezing Jax’s arms, before smashing them.
1995’s Mortal Kombat was a surprise hit, making $70 million worldwide, and remained at #1 in the North American box-office for three consecutive weekends. But after 1997’s Mortal Kombat: Annihilation made only $35 million worldwide and received extremely poor reviews, any further plans for the Mortal Kombat movie franchise were put on hold. There have been occasional rumors about the series being revived for two decades now, but the project finally picked up in 2015, when Furious 7 director James Wan signed on to produce, and in 2016, when Simon McQuoid was named the project’s director.
While film adaptations of video games were hot in the 90s, with films like Super Mario Bros. and Double Dragon disappointing audiences, many have believed the 1995 Mortal Kombat to be one of the best video game adaptations still to this day. Mortal Kombat was a huge franchise in the 90s, due to its then-extreme violence and the popularity of fighting games at the time, but the series has remained popular in the 25 years since the first film came out. One of the franchise’s most recent releases, Mortal Kombat X, sold 11 million copies alone, while the franchise overall has sold over 54 million units, more than the God of War, Crash Bandicoot, or The Witcher brands. The Mortal Kombat trailer promises that this movie will do better.
Mortal Kombat finally comes to theaters and HBO Max on April 16, 2021. To go along with the newly released Mortal Kombat trailer, HBO has also released character posters, showing off each of the combatants. Choose your character below…
