Mortal Kombat Creator Breaks Silence on 30-Year-Long Street Fighter Feud After All the Trash Talk

Since 1992, Mortal Kombat has gone from a hit video game series to a vast multimedia empire fueled by the franchise's groundbreaking (and controversial) violence and fatalities. The '90s franchise was such a phenomenon when it first came out that it even inspired a hit feature film just 3 years later, and a pretty damn good one at that. With incredibly fun special effects, an unforgettable villain performance from the late great Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, and one of the best theme songs of all time, it's no wonder why the ahead-of-its-time action movie grossed over 6x its reported budget.

The 1995 original has aged decently well and has since inspired even more movies, with Mortal Kombat II being the first film in the franchise to get a wide release in decades since its predecessor released during the pandemic. Still, a big question many fans often have to this day is why the original hit wasn't rated R, especially given the franchise's penchant for violence. Thankfully, I had the opportunity to sit down with Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon to discuss the legacy of the original film 30+ years later and what might be next for him and the team at NetherRealm Studios.

Ed Boon Wants To See a Mortal Kombat/Street Fighter Crossover Despite the Game Awards Beef

COLLIDER: One question I'm going to be asking everyone today is which guest character they would like to see in a future Mortal Kombat game, since that's become very much tradition for theMortal Kombat games recently. So, since you're the creator of those games, is there a character that you're really trying to get into the next installment of Mortal Kombat that's a guest?

ED BOON: Well, if you would have asked me that 10 years ago, I probably would have listed the ones that we've done: Rambo, Terminator, RoboCop, Ghost Face. A lot of the films that we grew up with are just burned into our brains, and so it's just like a validation when we see Terminator in a Mortal Kombatgame. So I think there still are a few. I would love to see a Street Fighter character in Mortal Kombat. I think that would be cool. I'm a huge fan of Street Fighter as well. We've had Joker, who was a really dark character, but DC and Marvel would be a lot of fun to see those characters as well.

I'm glad you mentioned Street Fighter, because that's actually my next question. As we now know, coming this October, there is going to be aStreet Fighter movie, and the cast at the Video Game Awards this year had some things to say. They were talking a little bit of smack. What's your response to that? And is the only way to settle this beef some sort of crossover movie or game?

BOON: [Laughs] You know what? I don't remember the whole cast doing it. I think it was the guy on the mic, and I forgot his name. But you know what? Those things are just part of the three-decade-long rivalry between Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. To me, it's just fun. It's a fun thing to kind of rile everybody up on. There's certainly no hard feelings and whatnot. So, at the end of the day, I think we'll see, when both films have been released, how they both did and stuff. But honestly, I'd love to see them both do well, just because there's an audience for more, which would be great.

Ed Boon and NetherRealm Have Big Plans for Mortal Kombat

Absolutely. Well, circling back to NetherRealm, Mortal Kombat 1, I believe, was 2023 when it first released. It's been a minute. A lot of people are very eagerly waiting for the next chapter of whatever NetherRealm does next. What can you tease? Is it another Mortal Kombat or maybe an Injustice 3? Something completely different, perhaps? What can you tease?

BOON: I wish I could tease something. I think if I teased and gave it away, I would probably get in trouble. But we're definitely pursuing another Mortal Kombat game, and we're definitely doing more, as well, so there are a lot of parts on the stove, not just with games, though, with other forms of media and whatnot. So, we’ve got a lot of great announcements that are coming.

'Mortal Kombat' 1995 Found the "Sweet Spot" Without an R-Rating

One quick question before I go. Even though I love this new movie, I am such a huge fan of the original 1995 film starring the great Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa.

BOON: Yeah! How old were you when they came out?

Oh, I wasn't even born yet.

BOON: Oh, you weren’t?! [Laughs] Wow! That’s awesome.

But I love it! So, what lessons did you learn from when that movie was made that you took into these new movies?

BOON: Well, that was a completely different production team and whatnot. I was involved from the standpoint of giving feedback to the script and whatnot there. I think a lot of people wanted to see that film rated-R, with fatalities and whatnot, but for the time I thought it was the sweet spot. It was the first Mortal Kombat film, one of the first video game films that did well. There were a number of them that came out that just didn't do well. But I think a lot of the lessons we learned from the previous three films were applied to this new one. But yeah, there's something about the 1995 film that people just hold dearly to themselves.Mortal Kombat II hits theaters on May 8, 2026. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.