10 Things You Won't Believe Inspired Iconic Video Games
7. Mortal Kombat Was A Failed Universal Soldier Tie-In
It’s common knowledge that the Mortal Kombat character, Johnny Cage, is based on the actor, Jean Claude Van Damme. However, many fans of the franchise were oblivious that Mortal Kombat started off as a video game adaptation of the Van Damme film, Universal Soldier. On top of that, Van Damme was going to portray the character for the game as well. The developers would animate the character by digitise footage of Van Damme performing certain poses e.g. punch, splits, roundhouse kick, etc. When the film underperformed, Van Damme backed out from the project.
The developers decided that the fighters in the game should be from iconic movies or based on famous people like The Terminator or Bruce Lee.
However, the budget was so tight, the creators couldn’t get the rights for ANY films. As a result, each player in the game was tweaked so it wasn’t a complete rip-off of a movie character. The Terminator was tweaked into Kano. The warriors from American Ninja became Sub-Zero and Scorpion. Characters from Big Trouble In Little China were changed into Raiden and Shang Tsung.
By the time the game was completed, it had no resemblance to its original pitch. Considering how successful the franchise became, it's insane that it started off as a tie-in to a forgettable '90s flick.