Greg Russo was barely a teenager when he convinced his mother to buy it Mortal Kombat for the Sega Genesis. It was 1993 and she had to drive it to the local K-Mart in South Jersey to pick up a copy. Once he got it in his hands, he felt like he had gotten away with something bad. Russo was aware of the controversy that was circulating Mortal Kombat at that moment; how gruesome and violent it should have been. His mother, not so much.
“It was on all day after that,” Russo said. ‘I joke with her these days. I’m like, ‘Hey, Mom, I might have cheated on you, but look, I wrote the movie.’ ”
Russo is the screenwriter Mortal Kombat, the film that will hit theaters and streaming services on April 23. He put together a story with newcomer Cole Young to the series and a cast of iconic characters, wrote dozens of fight scenes and gory fatalities, and sprinkled lots of jokes and drama, all while drawing on his long personal history with the franchise. .
And for Russo it is absolutely personal.
FREDERIC J. BROWN via Getty Images
“I grew up with love,” he said. ‘I always went to the arcade after school. It was kind of an escape for me. I grew up in a family with a divorce, so for me, getting out and being my own person was important. And for me it was the arcade. “
Early nineties Mortal Kombat became the focus of an intense debate in Congress about violence in pop culture. The game celebrated blood with a wink and a grin, with photorealistic characters spewing grainy blood as they lashed out at each other in gruesome, often hilarious ways. By 1994 Mortal Kombat was partly responsible for the creation of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, which still applies black and white ratings to video games today.
But for Russo and many others early Mortal Kombat fans, the game was pure fun and fantasy. He would play it at home, on that Sega Genesis, but if he needed an escape, he would visit the Mortal Kombat arcade machine at the local Barkley Bowling Lane.
“It was just me and a bunch of kids, and it just felt like our little safety net,” he said. “And Mortal Kombat was the throne we would all gather around. So it took a really personal place for me, and my love for it just grew out of that experience, it really did. “
Mortal Kombat was the throne we all sat around.
Barkley no longer exists, like many other bowling centers around the country. However, Mortal Kombat has made it through. The series has produced dozens of video games across multiple console generations and a handful of movies, most of which are worthless.
Russo made the new script look frivolous, but not enough to throw off the dramatic momentum. As shown in the first seven minutes of the film, it contains a slow-burning tension that erupts into bloody violence, and it does not shy away from mass murder, even when it comes to children. But of course there is also humor. It wouldn’t be Mortal Kombat without it.
“Mortal Kombat – you know, their fatalities are insane,” Russo said. “They find new ways to rip faces every day, which is ridiculously beautiful. I give them a lot of credit. But for a movie, we wanted to make sure it felt the balance, that it didn’t feel over the top, and that it didn’t hit crazy terrains. “
There’s a rhythm to Mortal Kombat games – introduce a new character, throw them into battle; introduce a new character; throw them into a fight – and Russo’s goal was to provide the movie with similar beats.
Warner Bros. Entertainment
“If you start with everyone lumped together, Avengersfashion, it’s just way too much, ”he said. You’ll get lost trying to understand who everyone is. So it gives our audience a chance to slowly get used to the world of Mortal Kombat as we slowly bring them in. And then we have the creative thing – I thought that was just a lot of fun, because to me it felt like you were unlocking characters as you went through the movie, kind of like in a classic game mode. “
Russo didn’t stop playing video games when Barkley dropped out of Bowling Lane. He recently admitted Polygon that he has an Xbox Live Gamerscore of “about 1.5 million”, making him one of the top 50 Xbox players in the world and the top 15 in the US. Working on Mortal Kombat has been more than a fantastic opportunity for him. Usually it is known.
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