Mortal Kombat Movie Writer Reveals The One Franchise He Wants To Work On Above All Others
Overview & Key Takeaways
Hollywood writer Jeremy Slater is back in the news with Mortal Kombat 2, which is in theaters now. He wrote the 2021 movie as well and is nearly done with a second draft for Mortal Kombat 3. But what else is he keen to do in the future? There is one franchise above all others that he wants to get to work on some day: Star Wars.
He told The Hollywood Reporter that he has already taken meetings with Lucasfilm, and he admitted he "nerded out to an embarrassing degree." He hasn't landed anything yet, though, and he said he wouldn't want to sign on to a Star Wars project unless he felt like he could do it justice.
"Star Wars has always been my white whale. It's always been the one thing that I've been chasing above all else, but I also don't want to take a job unless I can deliver," he said. "I can't think of anything more depressing and terrifying than getting your shot at Star Wars and then dropping the ball."
Hollywood writer Jeremy Slater is back in the news with Mortal Kombat 2, which is in theaters now. He wrote the 2021 movie as well and is nearly done with a second draft for Mortal Kombat 3. But what else is he keen to do in the future? There is one franchise above all others that he wants to get to work on some day: Star Wars.
He told The Hollywood Reporter that he has already taken meetings with Lucasfilm, and he admitted he "nerded out to an embarrassing degree." He hasn't landed anything yet, though, and he said he wouldn't want to sign on to a Star Wars project unless he felt like he could do it justice.
"Star Wars has always been my white whale. It's always been the one thing that I've been chasing above all else, but I also don't want to take a job unless I can deliver," he said. "I can't think of anything more depressing and terrifying than getting your shot at Star Wars and then dropping the ball."
While Slater has "certainly had discussions" about working on Star Wars, he admitted, "We've never found the right project." He added, "Maybe it'll happen someday, maybe it won't."
"Star Wars will always be the other phone call [DC's James Gunn is the other] that makes me drop whatever else I'm doing to run in that direction," he said. "It's pretty foundational to the DNA of my life and my instincts as a storyteller. Most of it can be traced back to the dual pillars of Jaws and Star Wars."
Star Wars would be Slater's biggest project in terms of fandom, but he has been hired for major franchises before. In addition to Mortal Kombat, Slater was brought on for 2015's Fantastic Four. The movie was very poorly received, and there was extensive behind-the-scenes drama. However, Slater said he wasn't privy to any of the controversy, and he said he thought he turned in an "awesome script." However, he said he was surprised to learn that, "My entire script had been thrown out."
"There was nothing in there that remotely resembled what I had set out to do," he said.
He got another shot in the Marvel universe with the TV show Moon Knight, but that project ran into issues, too, and Slater would eventually quit due to creative differences with the director.
"It's just that the pairing of writer and director is always really, really tricky. When it works--like I think it did on Mortal Kombat II with Simon McQuoid--it is magical and wonderful. But when it doesn't work, it's probably really frustrating for everyone involved," he said.
Mortal Kombat 2 is in theaters now, and it has work to do to recoup its reported production budget after the first weekend had some softness at the box office.
