Jean Claude Van Damme He’s not just an action movie icon. In the 1990s, he was instrumental in inspiring Ed Boon and John Tobias to create Mortal Kombat, the popular fighting game franchise. Later it was learned that johny cageone of his playable characters, was inspired by the protagonist of Bloody contact (bloodsport).
Clearly, Van Damme knew that information. In fact, he was always willing not only to play Johny Cage in a movie live action of Mortal Kombat, but also to “lend” his image to the video game fighter. After almost three decades, he will finally be able to fulfill that dream.
This week, Warner Bros. Games announced Mortal Kombat 1, a reboot for his video game saga. The title will see the light during September of this year and one of its main novelties is the participation of the actor.
Jean-Claude Van Damme, how could it be otherwise, will be Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat 1. Of course, it will be available as a additional aspect belonging to the season pass, the Kombat Pack. Therefore, you will have to open the wallet —again— in order to play with it.
The other attempts at Mortal Kombat with Van Damme
Van Damme’s presence in Mortal Kombat 1 is already guaranteed. However, they had to spend several attempts. During February 2022, in an interview with Game InformerEd Boon pointed out that His goal, from the beginning, was for Van Damme to be the image of the first Mortal Kombat (1992). The problem is that when it comes to negotiating with representatives, no deal is guaranteed.
“We made a demo and sent it to Jean-Claude Van Damme. On the tape we sent him we put together the demo and various charts of what we could do if he agreed to the deal. Jean-Claude’s representatives contacted our licensing representative and said, ‘Sorry, but he has already signed a deal to release a game with SEGA.’ Which is very weird, because we never saw that game. I’m still waiting for that game to be released after 25 years…”
Later, in October 2022, Boon revealed to Polygon that they tried to have Van Damme skin Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat 9. Although they transferred the idea to the actor, it could not come true.
“He’s supposed to [Van Damme] It would be Johnny Cage. We took footage of Bloodsport and talked about the digitized graphics and what Van Damme would look like in-game. At some point it happened. But then we asked him, maybe a couple of times around the time of Mortal Kombat 9, if he wanted to be a skin of the game. For whatever reason, it just didn’t materialize.”
Fortunately, that will change with Mortal Kombat 1. It is likely that the negotiation between Warner and Van Damme was quick and easy because, in 2022, the actor expressed his desire to play Johnny Cage in the sequel to Mortal Kombat, the film that was released in 2021. Does your appearance in the new video game guarantee you a role in the next film? We’ll see…