10 Movies That Totally Misunderstood Their Audience

Now, last year's Mortal Kombat reboot at least had the good sense to deliver the gory, R-rated kills that were sorely missing from the earlier live-action movies, but it nevertheless fell down hard in one key area: the hero.

Despite Mortal Kombat having an absolutely stacked gallery of iconic characters who could serve as the protagonist, the filmmakers decided to center the story around an entirely original character - an MMA fighter by the name of Cole Young (Lewis Tan).

It's a decision that seemed baffling enough on the surface that many fans assumed Cole would eventually be revealed as a reimagining of franchise legend Johnny Cage, which turned out not to be the case.

One suspects a studio executive felt, as they often do, that the story needed an audience surrogate to help introduce viewers to this world, which is of course complete nonsense.

As a result, fans had to suffer through a movie that placed far too much of an emphasis on this Random Guy we've never met before and his inevitably kidnapped family, when the protagonist could've just as easily been Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, or one of a dozen other popular Mortal Kombat characters.

With a sequel currently in the works, hopefully it'll shift the focus away from Cole towards Cage, who is confirmed to be appearing in the sequel.