The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that The Raid star Joe Taslim has joined the cast of the highly-anticipated Mortal Kombat reboot.
According to the trade, The Raid actor Joe Taslim is the first actor to close a deal to star in the next live-action Mortal Kombat movie. Best known for his work in The Raid: Redemption and The Night Comes for Us, Joe Taslim has joined the cast as Sub-Zero. No other casting details have been revealed yet but Joel Edgerton was rumored to be the top choice to play Kano in the reboot, which is being produced by James Wan through his Atomic Monster banner along with Todd Garner. Larry Kasanoff, E. Bennett Walsh, Michael Clear and Sean Robins are serving as executive producers.
Commercial director Simon McQuoid is set to make his feature debut with the project. McQuiod is best known for his commercials for PlayStation, Halo, Range Rover, and Beats by Dre. Principal photography expected to kick off later this year in South Australia.
Mortal Kombat is one of the most successful video game franchises of all time and the feature film adaptation that was released in 1995 is still regarded as one of the best video game adaptations in history. But after the sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation was poorly received, the mega-franchise stalled out and the fighting game hasn’t been as popular since.
However, the franchise found new life in 2010 when Mortal Kombat: Rebirth made waves online. The web-short from screenwriter Oren Uziel gained enough popularity to spawn the web series Mortal Kombat: Legacy. Uziel initially developed the script for the live-action reboot and even teased the project as an R-rated version of The Avengers. However, Greg Russo penned a more recent draft of the script.
Mortal Kombat is slated to hit theaters March 5, 2021. Stay tuned to Heroic Hollywood for the latest news on the Mortal Kombat reboot.
Source: THR
