Mortal Kombat Reboot Underway With New Director Simon McQuoid

Variety reports that the studio is in talks with director Simon McQuoid for the film. Known for his work in directing advertisements, the Los Angeles-based Australian director did some of the most memorable commercials for Playstation and BEATS by Dre, among others. The Mortal Kombat reboot would be McQouid's feature film directorial debut.

Conjuring director James Wan will be taking over the reigns as the producer, together with Micheal Clear representing Atomic Monster, and Broken Road Productions' Todd Garner and Jeremy Stein. Greg Russo is responsible for the movie's script. As for New Line, the studio will take part as Executive Producer.

Famous for being the first movie to break the "videogame curse" (the term fans use to describe a movie based from a video game usually performs bad in the box office), the first Mortal Kombat movie toppled its competitors and remained as the no.1 movie for almost a month from its released, grossing $122 million in worldwide sales. The Hollywood Reporter adds that the first movie's success, which had Paul W.S. Anderson as director, paved way for a sequel. Unfortunately, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation was not able to repeat the success of its predecessor.  Anderson then moved on to direct the Resident Evil movies, which brought him to the limelight. 

Based on the 90's video game of the same name, the movie adaptation revolves around several of the game's characters as they defend the Earth in a tournament-style competition. Using the first game as the main resource material, it also added several elements from the second game, Mortal Kombat II.

The Mortal Kombat games are famous by its use of over-the-top finishing moves the fighters made, excessive violence and gore, something that the movies were able to translate quite well.