Mortal Kombat 1 Almost Got John Wick As A Guest Fighter

thegamer.com:

Learning who the guest fighters are going to be in the next Mortal Kombat game has become as big a part of the build-up to its release as the reveal of the base roster. Among the guest stars in Mortal Kombat 1 are John Cena's Peacemaker, Invincible's Omni-Man, and Homelander from The Boys. Despite the superhero/supervillain theme when it comes to the new Mortal Kombat game's guests, Ed Boon has revealed the team tried to get John Wick on the roster.

"When we were making Mortal Kombat (1992), the whole team was in the midst of Bloodsport, Enter the Dragon, and all the Terminator movies," Ed Boon told Rolling Stone when discussing development of the very first game in the series and where it pulled inspiration from. "I could certainly see the John Wicks of the world… as a matter of fact, that is one of the ones that we tried to get – John Wick – in Mortal Kombat, and we didn’t get it."

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Boon didn't elaborate on what exactly prevented NethearRealm from being able to include Wick as a guest fighter. Odds are it was the studio that owns the Wick IP, Lionsgate, not agreeing to license out the character. It's also possible Keanu Reeves played a part in putting the kibosh on his character being brutally killed millions of times by the likes of Mileena and Sub-Zero.

Reeves was asked whether he would ever like to see Wick, as well as Neo from The Matrix, in Mortal Kombat. "If it was up to me? No. Mortal Kombat is awesome in so many ways, but I think... you know, Neo, John Wick, they're doing their own thing," Reeves told Esquire in 2021. Perhaps Lionsgate asked for his opinion on the matter and that was the answer. It's even possible NetherRealm had already