Summary
- Warner Bros. turned down the opportunity to make an animated crossover movie between Mortal Kombat and DC Universe despite the success of the video game.
- Writer Jeremy Adams, who has worked on both franchises, expressed his hope for a DC/Mortal Kombat crossover and his desire to be involved in the project.
- While there have been successful collaborations between Mortal Kombat and DC in the form of video games like Injustice, Warner Bros. has shown little interest in a direct crossover between the two franchises.
“Finish him!” Those two little words conjure up violent, bloody imagery of the countless fantastic fatalities from the Mortal Kombat video game franchise over the last 30+ years. And in 2008, the crossover event Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe dropped on the Playstation 3 and Xbox360 platforms. The popular video game matched up characters from DC Comics like Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman against MK’s warriors, including Raiden, Scorpion and more. However, despite the success of the game, Warner Bros. turned down the opportunity to make an animated crossover movie. Supernatural writer Jeremy Adams said in an exclusive interview with ComicBook.com:
I would lower your expectations. I don’t know if they have any plans to do more. I do know that we pitched that a while ago, but it was kind of rebuffed.
In addition to writing the animated titles Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge, Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind and Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms, Adams wrote 25 episodes of DC Super Hero Girls. He also penned Batman: Soul of the Dragon, Justice Society: World War II and, most recently, he co-wrote Justice League: Warworld. So, Adams has a unique understanding of both these highly successful franchises. Adams said in the same interview:
“Well, I think at the end of the day, I don’t know if they’re ever going to do anymore. I hope they do, and I hope they call me to be involved. That would be great because I really love it. But I don’t know. I don’t know. I think it would be really cool though. Trust me, I would love to see a DC Mortal Kombat. That would be super, super cool.”
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
In 1992, Midway Games released the very first edition of Mortal Kombat. The video game series was created by Ed Boon and John Tobias. 16 years later, MK crossed over with the DC Comics’ characters for the first time. And the concept was a huge success. In January of 2009, Midway reported that 1.8 million copies of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe had shipped since its November 2008 release. Boon said in a statement (via Game Spot):
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe was the result of countless hours of hard work by many people, and seeing the game surpass the million-seller plateau makes it worth all the effort. We’re already hard at work on our next version of Mortal Kombat, and look forward to being able to reveal more details in the future.
Mortal Kombat co-creator Boon said in an interview with Game Informer:
“The biggest lesson we learned with Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe was that there was an opportunity for two separate games that each could embrace their roots without compromising the other. This resulted in us deciding that the next Mortal Kombat game would be a full reboot and aggressively embrace everything signature about Mortal Kombat. This included going back to a 2D fighting plane, retelling the story of the original trilogy, and going back to our classic Fatalities without restrictions.”
Five years after the release of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, Boon served as the director over the NetherRealm Studios and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment collaboration Injustice: Gods Among Us in 2013. The Mortal Kombat-esque fighting game, minus MK’s vaunted fatalities, featured a full roster of DC Comics’ superheroes and villains. The popularity of the video game venture led to 2017’s follow-up game Injustice 2 and 2021’s animated film Injustice. However, Warner Bros. has shown little interest in a straight-up crossover between DC and MK, according to writer Jeremy Adams.
