Mortal Kombat is getting another chance at the big screen

The Mortal Kombat franchise has been on the sort of upswing many dead franchises could only dream of in recent years, and it looks like it’s finally gonna get another shot at a movie.

It’s been reported that James Wan, famous for directing 2004’s Saw, and most recently, Furious 7, has signed on as producer for an upcoming retelling of the Mortal Kombat mythos. Wan joins writers Oren Uziel (who penned the recent Mortal Kombat: Legacy webseries) and Dave Callaham (The Expendables) who have already been confirmed as writers.

A vague pitch for the movie’s direction has also surfaced online:

“The script … 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’..”

Anyone who’s a fan of both video games and film can tell you that, by and large, the marriage of the two has always ended in disaster, yet 1995’s Mortal Kombat is largely considered to be the one exception to the rule. The cheesy action flick (helmed by a then-unknown Paul W. S. Anderson) somehow managed to strike a perfect balance between respecting the existing lore, and injecting its own camp while never taking itself too seriously. (It was also a big help that it had one of the catchiest theme songs ever)

Of course the brief tale of Mortal Kombat-on-film went out with a whimper rather than a bang, with the laughably bad Mortal Kombat: Annihilation released a couple of years later; a film that’s really only good for one of two things: 1) using as a coaster, or 2) getting drunk with your friends and laughing at, MST3K-style.

HA HA we’re ruining a franchise!

A smarter, grittier reboot of the film franchise could be exactly what Mortal Kombat needs. After the series fell of the radar with mediocre-after-mediocre release, the buyout by Warner Bros. gave Netherrealm Studios the resources they needed to relaunch the series in 2011, which was met with outstanding acclaim from fans of the series and gamers alike. Mortal Kombat X, released this year for next-gen consoles, has been the best selling game of 2015. In addition to an ongoing comics series running concurrently with the game’s canon, a successful film release could be the thing to cement MK’s persistence in pop culture.

No word as of yet for a release date, but expect news of a director and cast being attached in the coming months.