Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is 15 years old at this point, and the meshing of the two popular properties has almost become commonplace thanks NetherRealm Studios’ Injustice games, so that’s probably why the idea of an animated crossover film sounds like it could easily work.
In fact, Jeremy Adams, writer of all three Mortal Kombat Legends films as well as animated Batman and a Justice League films, pitched it to Warner a few years back. He recently sat down with ComicBook and spilled the beans.
“I do know that we pitched that a while ago, but it was kind of rebuffed,” Adams told ComicBook. “Trust me, I would love to see a DC Mortal Kombat. That would be super, super cool.”
From the sounds of it, Warner doesn’t suspect such a collaboration over the film medium would make them much money. The Injustice titles saw reasonably success with the first doing well enough to inspire the second, and the second selling some 1.5 million copies in its first three months, and though that isn’t exactly Mortal Kombat meets DC, those games were essentially DC made by the MK crew, and both featured playable MK guest characters.
One does have to wonder the nature of such a film, but especially in recent years we’ve seen tons of examples of superheroes escaping the PG-13 realm. It wouldn’t be the overall rating that might scare off DC, but perhaps the fact that it’s hard to have fights with Mortal Kombat characters without giving up at least some of your own to deadly blood and gore.
It’s hard to imagine a setting where we see Superman getting dismembered, (for a handful of reasons) but writers could surely find some kind of atmosphere that would allocate for all relevant boxes to be checked.
Maybe we’re in a standalone universe where Batman does indeed get his soul sucked out by Shang Tsung, or maybe all the fighting takes place on some magical or virtual island where death isn’t quite so permanent. The point with this kind of a film wouldn’t be to write the best story ever, it’d be to show badass three way battles between Wonder Woman, Kitana, and Mileena.
In any case, we’re not going to hold our breath for this to come to fruition anytime soon, but the idea is one Warner should at least keep in its back pocket, because if handled correctly, it could be pretty cool. What do you think? Let us know your thoughts on such an animated endeavor (and perhaps how you’d write it) in the comments below.