MORTAL KOMBAT (2021) Preview: Producer Todd Garner on the Importance of Diversity, Authentic Martial Arts, That R-Rating and More!

Ever since I laid my eyes on its first trailer, one of this writer’s most anticipated films for 2021 has been Mortal Kombat, which was directed by Simon McQuoid and stars Joe Taslim, Hiroyuki, Tadanobu Asano, Mehcad Brooks, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Ludi Lin, Chin Han, Daniel Nelson, Max Huang and Sisi Stringer. 

Recently, I had the opportunity to check out the first 13 minutes of Mortal Kombat (2021), which is the opening scene that introduces us to enemies Scorpion and Sub-Zero as well as a very electrifying Raiden who makes an unforgettable entrance, and the sequence set an impressive stage for what looks to be not only one of the best video game adaptations to come along pretty much ever, but also one of the gnarliest U.S. action films this side of the John Wick series. I don’t want to give too much away, but what I will say is the way that McQuoid seamlessly blends together all the fantastical elements from the game, relentless action sequences and a stunning real-world backdrop is nothing short of a cinematic miracle.

At a recent virtual press preview day for Mortal Kombat (2021), Daily Dead had the opportunity to join in with a group of journalists to chat with one of the film’s producers, Todd Garner, who discussed his involvement with the film, and how the project came together. Garner also chatted about Warner Bros.’ unequivocal support for making sure that this new Mortal Kombat went all in with its R-rating, McQuoid’s approach to the martial arts sequences in the film, why fans won’t see Johnny Cage in this film, and so much more.

The original Mortal Kombat was released in 1995, with a PG-13 rating. Do you feel, because of where the climate has changed in Hollywood with R-rated action movies and the fact that you have a fan base that's a little bit older now, do those things lend themselves to being able to make this movie rated R in this time and space, in terms of where we are at now?

Yes and no. I don't think it was ever an age thing for me. For me it was, I've been in the business for 30 years, I've made a lot of movies, and I've made a lot of PG movies. I worked at Disney for 10 years. And I made a lot of PG-13 movies and I've made a few R-rated movies. So I just couldn't see a world where this is PG-13. It just didn't feel right. It didn't feel authentic. So to answer your question in a broader way, the R rating, the diverse cast, hiring martial artists, telling the story in an authentic way, all led to the decisions that we made. Which Warner brothers was so brave to let us do. James and I, we talked about, it's got to be R-rated, it's called Mortal Kombat.

This is the expectation that's been built into the fan base. It's a diverse world. There's not that many white characters. You can't shortchange the characters, in terms of their ethnicity and who they are. So we started from that place. That was an agreement from the beginning that we made:  if we're going to make this, let's do it honestly and do it right or don't do it. By the way, honestly, that's why it took so long to get made, because we held to that. And they agreed.

Thank God there were movies that came before us that led the way, like Crazy Rich Asians doing well, Black Panther doing well. Movies that did well where all of a sudden the Hollywood establishment, not so much the Warner Bros people, because they were always on board, but just the world was like, "Oh wow, you can make a movie with a whole Asian cast that grosses $200 million." Duh. What difference does it make? Make a movie that happens to have Asian people in it, or make a movie that happens to have a diverse cast. It doesn't matter. Tell a good story and be faithful to the IP and you'll be fine. So the timing worked out perfectly because they allowed us to just do the best for the movie and they went with it.

What was the pressure like for you guys to do a movie that was authentic, in terms of martial arts that could stack up against some of the amazing martial arts movies that are being made nowadays like The Raid? Although you did manage to get Joe Taslim.

It was everything to me. And what's fascinating is, it's like when you buy a blue car and then all you can see is blue cars. Once I really saw a good martial arts movie, you really watch American movies, you're like, "Man, I used to think that was good." And it was just two actors throwing each other around. It's not martial arts at all. It's just stunt guys banging on each other and shooting guns and throwing each other out windows. So it was everything. This quote has been attributed to me, and it wasn't me, it was Simon who said, we're going to make the greatest fight movie ever filmed. Thank God. That's like his bar, and God bless him because I didn't have to do it. I didn't have to choreograph it, shoot it, or be in it. So I could watch and go, "Wow, this is no joke." And you think back to even like The Matrix and you watch Keanu do five or six moves of good martial arts choreography, and it's like, "Whoa, that's impressive." Or Quentin did it with Uma. It's like five or six moves of sword fighting, you're like, "That's pretty cool."

We have fights that have 25, 26, 27 moves of choreography with no cut. I'm not doing that. You and me aren't going out there and going, "Listen Chris, I don't want to kick you in the face so here we go." And you probably would see us going, "Five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11." Joe Taslim is so fast. Mehcad, too. When he [Joe] had his first fight with Mehcad, he's like, "He's really fast you guys. This is crazy how fast this is going." That was everything to us. If you're going to make a Mortal Kombat movie, you gotta do it.

And again, to Warner Bros credit, is we said, "Here are potentially the issues we're going to have. One is we have to have a completely diverse cast that's completely loyal and faithful to the game in terms of their ethnicity. Number two, they have to be good at martial arts. And number three, we would really prefer them to be the best at what they do. And number four, they have to be the best at this specific thing that their characters do." Like with a sword or a flying kick or a hat or fire. Warner Bros went along with it. It was crazy. And it shows in the movie. I know you've only seen a little bit of it, but it's made me now watch movies and go, "That's not as good as I thought it was." So that's where we're at.

Can you tell us about the balance of CGI blood in this movie versus real blood, and what kind of budget percentage the blood went to in this film?

Well, the CGI blood is so complicated because it's so easy and so good to use. Because it's very hard to get blood to do what you want it to do. Everything's perfect and you have 26 moves of choreography, and you have the blood splatter just dripping down the thing like a ketchup pack. If you've already talked to Simon, his north star was practical. No CG. That was his north star. So everything was going to be real. We're going to go to Coober Pedy, in the middle of the desert, in the outback in 110 degree heat and fight the flies because that's what the movie deserves.

The choreography is going to be real. No wires. Fighting's going to be as many moves of choreography as can be possibly done in one shot with the camera moving. So blood was the next thing. You get to, how are you going to do Goro? Really you want to go back to the old puppet guy where the torso is this long because the guy's head is looking at his nipple? Okay, so we got to do certain things CG. When you have a guy getting a spear thrown through his head, it's very hard to make the blood do what you want, and the last thing you want to do is, "All right, guys. That was perfect. We’ve got to go again because the blood splatter didn't go." So wherever possible, we are practical. But in the interest of me not killing myself, because we'd probably still be in there, in Australia, trying to get the blood to do what we want, I would sometimes say, "Can we move on and do it CG?" But for any time he could, there is no CG in this movie.

There are like 97 characters in the game series. Obviously you're going to pick the most popular to come star in the first film, but how did you decide where to hold back on characters so that there's that intrigue to keep these films going?

I'll give you a perfect example. The reason we held back Johnny Cage is that he is a very egotistical guy. He's a scoundrel. He's funny. He's bigger than life. He's running around, he's got the glasses. And so is Kano. So you go, “Are we just going to have two guys competing to be who can out funny each other and ego each other in this movie, or do you hold Johnny Cage back?” Because, God willing, we're able to do another one, everybody is waiting for that. I'm a dad, and sometimes I have kids and I go, "If you do this, we get to go to Disneyland." So it's like, I'm praying, just for so many reasons that this goes well because I can go to Warner Bros will be like, "I got Johnny Cage, guys. We can make this." So for a lot of reasons, we held him back.

The other, Rain and the reptilian character, they both cloak. You don't want two cloaking guys. First of all, it's expensive. And second of all, they do the same thing. So you just start to then unwind it that way, of like, there are people we can see later. There are also characters that have such complicated backstories with other characters you want to give them more service. There's so much to draw from, so we were trying to be as intelligent as we possibly could to tell a story that you could just come in and sit down, not know what Mortal Kombat is, and enjoy it. And by the end be as big a fan as the guy who's played the game for 30 years and knows everything about everything. 

I understand that there's those fans. I get it. There are certain things I would love to have had in the movie and I couldn't. Cost and practicality and things like that. Just going off on a weird tangent for 20 minutes for something that's not to the core story. So our goal and our prayer is that this movie does well enough and we've set it up enough and is satisfying enough for both the fans and people who don't know anything about Mortal Kombat, that they're going to allow us, at some point, to sit with all the Warner Bros execs, and put a big whiteboard up, like Kevin Feige did, and map out the universe and map out years and years of this. That's my prayer.

You brought up the MPAA. Were there ever any gags or gore effects that you kind of knew you had to tamper down? And was there any kind of conversation with the MPAA during editing?

No. Again, I think also part of the reason why New Line hired me to do this movie is I've done so many movies and you just get the MPAA in your blood. Pardon the pun. You just know when you're just being petulant and you're trying something that's going to go too far. And also, the game is different because it's pixels. They're not real people. They're digital creations. And again, you can gut a dinosaur in a PG-13 movie. Jurassic did it. You'd be hard pressed to gut a German Shepherd in a PG-13 film. So it's also your intention. If you're just doing it to like, "Watch this, I'm going to do this," then you're going to run afoul of the MPAA. If you're honest to the characters and you're not just pushing it for the sake of pushing it, you're not going to have a problem.

So between Simon and I, yes, there are buckets of blood and there's some crazy shit that happens in this movie, but we did everything we wanted, so it's not like I was pushing the MPAA with the knowledge that I know I'm going to have to back off, which is always the trade off in the PG-13 world. We did everything we wanted and they didn't push back, because we didn't set out to piss them off.

----------

Mortal Kombat will be released to theaters and will be streaming exclusively on HBO Max starting April 16th!