While I probably didn’t expect to see the digital rendition of 90s-era Jean-Claude Van Damme as Mortal Kombat icon Johnny Cage today, it’s definitely far more surprising (to me) that the reveal has come by way of series creator Ed Boon featuring in Hot Ones.
Boon took to the hot seat in a new episode of Sean Evans’ series on First We Feast, which sees celebrities and public figures interviewed on camera while biting into a gauntlet of increasingly-hot wings, and spoke about video games and the history of Mortal Kombat both in-game and in the real world. And, of course, about the full-circle moment where the studio was able to get the likeness of Van Damme, who had unintentionally kicked off the legacy of Mortal Kombat by declining to star in a video game that Boon and his team were pitching at the time.
You can see the (very short) clip of the Van Damme skin for Johnny Cage, which comes in the game’s Premium Edition and will also include the legendary actor’s voice, in the episode of Hot Ones below, but the whole thing is honestly worth a watch:
“When we made the very first game, our original intention was to make Van Damme – The Arcade Game,” Boon tells Evans in the video. “So we called his people and we were like, ‘We want to make a game based on Van Damme.’ And I don’t know if he declined or it just never got to him, but this is a couple of 20-something-year-old kids who wanted to make a video game. I could see how Van Damme would go ‘No, no we’re not doing this.’ So we tried a number of times, going back and forth with him. This time, we hit the lottery and we got him.”
Jean-Claude Van Damme isn’t the only celebrity Mortal Kombat 1 appearance shown off this week either, with Megan Fox having just been revealed as the voice behind returning fighter, Nitara.
Mortal Kombat 1 releases on September 19th, 2023 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. Amazon currently has pre-orders for $84 including free shipping. The Premium Edition is also available and comes with the Jean-Claude Van Damme skin, among other goodies, and also launches five days early on September 14th.
