If the original movie from the 90s is any indicator, this should be amazing because that original movie was incredibly well done. I found it funny that there was hardly any blood or gore in it (but lots of Goro...lol) despite that being what made MK stand out from other fighting games like Streetfighter, Tekken and Killer Instinct. Of course it was because their fan base was still young and they were avoiding that dreaded "Rated R" designation because that would've been financially devastating.
What they did instead was focus on great effects (for the time they were anyway) and spectacular fight scenes that still look awesome today like Cage vs Scorpion and (especially) Liu Kang vs Sub-Zero. The producers of the first movie knew what the fans wanted to see and gave it to them, in spades. The fight choreography of Mortal Kombat was, and still is, some of the best that I've ever seen.
Let's remember that Mortal Kombat came out not long after that "so-bad-that-it-was-insulting" piece of garbage called Street Fighter. Capcom gave Street Fighter a budget of $35,000,000 and it was clear that a good chunk of that money went to JCVD and Raul Julia's salary because the movie itself was pure trash. Midway gave Mortal Kombat a budget of just over half of that ($20,000,000) and instead of making a trash movie relying on big names like JCVD and Julia to attract audiences, they decided to use good actors who DIDN'T have big names and spent more on the sets, effects and (especially) the fight choreography to make a movie that was 100x the movie that Street Fighter ever was.
It was the biggest slap in the face that Midway had given Capcom since the first time that MK arcade machines out-earned Street Fighter arcade machines. The fact that they did it with only 57% of the budget made Capcom's (lack of) efforts all the more pathetic. Midway didn't only rely on Mortal Kombat's name to sell the movie like Capcom did with Street Fighter. Midway actually wanted the movie itself to be awesome and as we Canadians say, "He shoots, he scores!".
Capcom's Street Fighter:
Budget: $35,000,000USD
Opened: December 23, 1994 (May 6, 1995 in Japan)
Opening Weekend Gross: $9,508,030USD
Total Gross Estimate: $99,423,521USD
Box Office Position: #3, after Dumb and Dumber and The Santa Clause
Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score: 10%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 2.2/5 with 20% giving it 3.5 or higher
Midway's Mortal Kombat:
Budget: $20,000,000USD
Opened: August 18, 1995
Opening Weekend Gross: $23,200,000USD
Total Gross Estimate: $192,000,000USD
Box Office Position: #1 with earnings more than 7 times that of the #2 new movie that weekend, The Babysitter's Club and remained at #1 for 3 weeks.
Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score: 48%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 3.5/5 with 57% giving it 3.5 or higher
As you can see, there's no comparison.
