Around these parts, we have a real soft spot for Mortal Kombat, director Paul W.S. Anderson’s 1995 feature film adaptation of the immensely popular, ultra-violent video game franchise. We also think you need to have a soft spot in your cranium to like that film’s two increasingly terrible sequels. While the video game franchise itself has been a highly popular mainstay for the last three decades and more, those horrible movies essentially killed its big screen chances.
Enter Mortal Kombat: Legacy. Directed by Kevin Tancharoen the brilliant web series breathed new life into the series, and suddenly got Hollywood really excited about bringing the battle between Earth’s mightiest warriors and the invading forces of Outworld back to cinemas… Except, that never happened as Tancharoen exited the project to pursue other ideas. Enter James Wan, the man who started off his career with brilliant low budget horror flicks like Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring, and then pivoted flawlessly into mega budget blockbuster territory with Fast & Furious 7. Wan wouldn’t be directing this planned feature film reboot of Mortal Kombat, but just producing. Directing duties would fall to… well, at the time we had no idea. But now we do!
Variety is reporting that Wan and co have tapped Australian director Simon McQuoid to helm the film. To most audiences, McQuoid is a complete unknown as he has really never directed a full length feature film before. However, as Variety stresses, he’s not a complete newbie, as he’s “one of the most in-demand commercials directors in the business” having worked on massive ad campaigns for some of the biggest brands in the world.
And, most importantly, he is no stranger to directing video game characters. McQuoid was the man behind the brilliant “Michael” ad for Sony Playstation, which featured characters from a number of the console’s exclusive franchise meeting up in a tavern. He also directed “Enemy Weapon”, a brief but rather effective ad that was part of Microsoft’s massive “Believe” marketing campaign for the release of Halo 3 on Xbox 360. You can check out both really cool ads below.
You can check out more of McQuoid’s work for Netflix, Land Rover, Audi and more on his Rogue Films production studio’s Vimeo page.
At this point, there’s still no further word on the rest of the actual production of this film. When Tancharoen was still attached, his Mortal Kombat: Legacy screenwriter Oren Uziel (22 Jump Street) was supposed to also be penning the script for this new movie. It’s uncertain if that is still the case, or if some new blood has been brought in to give this a fresh spin. There was once talk of some kind of time travel element being introduced into the story for this reboot, so this may be a clever sorta-kinda reset in the vein of JJ Abrams’ Star Trek, but right now it’s all guess work.
Last Updated: November 21, 2016
Admiral Chief Argonian
November 21, 2016 at 12:33
PoisonedBelial
November 21, 2016 at 12:35
<3
Hammersteyn_hates_Raid0
November 21, 2016 at 12:40
o/
Andre Fourie
November 21, 2016 at 12:42
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0e8ce1a753185634313fe4034b2b4ca1e8184f681365b84dcfafbb8ba40b4cc1.jpg
HvR
November 21, 2016 at 12:51
https://media.giphy.com/media/g6dm5eMVxxo2Y/giphy.gif
Andre Fourie
November 21, 2016 at 12:57
That’s disturbingly funny.
Lord Chaos
November 21, 2016 at 12:58
It’s making my eyes bleed, and yet I can’t look away.
Andre Fourie
November 21, 2016 at 13:12
Same here.
HvR
November 21, 2016 at 13:11
It is very special gif, he always dances in tune to the rave/EDM song I post in reply off
Andre Fourie
November 21, 2016 at 12:45
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dedca17c44f51a1e47a2ea3fb2bd12e3a83718ab781c2c04458ebd349e124780.jpg
Viper_ZA
November 21, 2016 at 13:27
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8b898f6521f4ee834c6963767eabc6ecec99bf79439a7d41f52617a1d0593f35.gif
Admiral Chief Argonian
November 21, 2016 at 14:13
He’s gonna have a hard time fighting against Rince
Avithar
November 22, 2016 at 09:44
looks cool hope the story behind it is amazing