The Tracking Board is reporting that the Mortal Kombat film reboot is moving forward with James Wan as producer.
Furious 7 director James Wan is stepping in to produce the MORTAL KOMBAT reboot currently underway at New Line and Broken Road.
The in-demand director of The Conjuring and Insidious: Chapter 2 has been brought over to uppercut some new life into the previously stunted picture. With his dark sensibility, ability to orchestrate action and scares, and a wildly successful financial track record, Wan seems to be the perfect fit for what the studio has described as “a departure from the mythology,” with “darker, brutally real martial arts.”
The script, being penned by Mortal Kombat: Legacy writer Oren Uziel and The Expendables writer Dave Callaham, centers around a seemingly harmless guy who realizes his potential when he finds himself caught in the middle of a cross-dimensional battle between the warriors of Earth and the monsters of Outworld. Now, in order to stop the world from total destruction, he must win the martial arts tournament known as ‘Mortal Kombat’.
The film is based on the iconic video game series from Midway Games, which gained notoriety in the early 1990s for its depiction of graphically violent hand-to-hand combat. Since its release, the franchise has sold over 35 million units–more than enough to warrant a reboot of the film series, which stalled out with 1997’s Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. With the white-hot Wan on board, the right buttons may have just been pressed to put the finishing moves on this project.