Mortal Kombat Studio Execs Had A Wild Casting Idea Involving Danny Glover – SlashFilm

Midway’s original “Mortal Kombat” arcade game released in 1992 to a great deal of consternation. The title was revolutionary at the time, incorporating sprites that had been extrapolated from real actors in fighter poses. Mainly, though, “Mortal Kombat” was noted for its violence. Huge globs of blood would spray out of people’s faces when punched, splattering all over the ground. Moreover, the game featured downright gory finishing fight moves, aka. Fatalities. With the right button combination, you could pull off your opponent’s head (their spinal cord coming with it), among other things.

Of course, the game was a hit. As parents wrung their hands in worry, kids pumped quarters into the machines. It led to many, many sequels, which are still being made to this day. So, naturally, someone got the bright idea to turn “Mortal Kombat” into a film, which was released in 1995. In a baffling decision, though, director Paul W.S. Anderson’s movie tones down the gore, taking on the form of a fantastical yet silly fight competition flick with broad appeal. In the end, 1995’s “Mortal Kombat” was a box office hit that doomed video game movies for decades.

For our purposes, however, we’re going to focus on the film’s version of the lightning fighter Raiden, as played by Christopher Lambert in a ridiculous white wig. At the time, the actor’s casting garnered some controversy since many “Mortal Kombat” fans assumed Raiden was of Asian ancestry. The movie’s creatives discussed this with The Hollywood Reporter for its 2015 oral history of the film, explaining they had also considered casting Lambert’s “Highlander” co-star Sean Connery. What’s more, “Mortal Kombat” video game co-creator Ed Boon revealed that a New Line Cinema executive even floated the idea of casting Danny Glover as Raiden to him.

Raiden was portrayed by Carlos Pesina for the 1992 “Mortal Kombat” video game, so the character was technically never explicitly of Asian heritage. Nevertheless, his conical hat (a douli) is worn widely in East Asian countries. In the mythology of the game, Raiden isn’t human, either, and is said to be a god of thunder who serves as the Earthrealm’s protector. Again, though, he’s often seen in Asian locales, so it’s easy to assume he’s Asian.

“Christopher Lambert did a great job. He brought a lot of his own personal performance to it,” Ed Boon told THR. He later clarified, “We never showed his [Raiden’s] face that clearly in the game, so we never really defined a race, but we didn’t think ‘the ‘Highlander’ guy.’ That wasn’t in our heads.”

Boon, for his part, also admitted that he assumed the 1995 “Mortal Kombat” movie would collapse. As such, he kind of snarfed at all the Raiden casting suggestions:

“When the movie was being discussed, I remember not taking it seriously at first. I thought, ‘This is probably going to be talked about but not happen.’ Then all of a sudden we were getting phone calls about casting and they were saying, ‘What about this guy for this character? What about this guy for that character?’ I remember them saying, ‘What do you think of Danny Glover as Raiden?'”

Danny Glover, meanwhile, is a Black man born in San Francisco. And while he’s a widely celebrated actor with a great deal of range (having starred in everything from “Lethal Weapon” and “Predator 2” to Steven Spielberg’s “The Color Purple” and Wes Anderson’s “The Royal Tenenbaums”), Glover might be one of the last actors one would associate with Raiden.

As mentioned, Raiden’s original 1992-era video sprite was performed by Carlos Pesina. His brother, Daniel, provided the movements for the “Mortal Kombat” character Johnny Cage, as well as Sub-Zero, Scorpion, and Reptile (which were all, more or less, color-swapped versions of the same character). Some old magazine interviews even feature photos of Carlos Pesina in the Raiden outfit and offer a brief background.

Paul W.S. Anderson’s “Mortal Kombat” may have cast Christopher Lambert as Raiden, but he hardly defines the character. In fact, the same year the movie came out, there was a tie-in animated film released titled “Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins,” with Ron Feinberg voicing Raiden. Then, in the 1997 live-action sequel “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation,” James Remar took over the role.

In the 2020s, a whole new wave of “Mortal Kombat” movies made their way to the public, starting with the ultra-violent animated feature “Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge,” wherein David B. Mitchell played Raiden before reprising the role in “Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms.” 2021 also saw the release of an underwhelming rebooted live-action movie merely titled “Mortal Kombat,” although that film finally cast an actor of Asian ancestry to play Raiden. Specifically, he was portrayed by Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano, who subsequently returned for the sequel “Mortal Kombat II.” 

So, it took almost three decades and Danny Glover being seriously (?) considered for the role, but at long last, the live-action “Mortal Kombat” movies have finally gotten around to casting an Asian actor as Raiden.