Month: April 2021

The Los Angeles Clippers are, unquestionably, a contender for the 2021 NBA title, just as they were in 2020. With Kawhi Leonard and Paul George on the same side, there is a certain baseline for success and, in the recent past, the Clippers have risen to the top of the heap. It wasn’t always smooth sailing this season, though, as the Clippers opened the 2020-21 campaign with a relatively modest 26-16 record. That placed them just a half-game ahead of the No. 6 seed in the West and, when compared to preseason expectations, it was reasonable to argue they were falling at least nominally short of their projected baseline.

Since then, however, the Clippers have been the best team in the NBA. Dating back to March 20, they are 14-3 in their last 17 games, and Los Angeles had their top two players (Leonard and George) available in only one of those losses. The 14-3 mark is the best in the league, and the Clippers boast a +12.0 net rating, dominating the competition with an unquestionably elite offense and a top-five defense during that sample.

The Clippers still aren’t quite at full strength with both Serge Ibaka and Patrick Beverley missing extended time but, simply put, Los Angeles is elite when even one of their best players is on the hardwood. Tyronn Lue’s team has a +11.8 net rating with Leonard on the court and a +12.2 net rating with George on the court, regardless of any other context. When they play together (as they will a great deal in the postseason), the Clippers are outscoring opponents by a blistering 16.9 points per 100 possessions, with an elite offensive mark (123.4) and a wildly impressive defensive mark (106.5) to boot.

It could be said that the Clippers are due for some level of shooting regression. For example, they are blowing the rest of the league in three-point shooting, making 42.1 percent of their attempts. From there, Los Angeles is currently posting the best offensive rating (117.4) in the history of the league and, even when accounting for an environment friendly to scoring, that is an eye-popping figure. Some of their recent success can even be tied to Marcus Morris, who is averaging 16.5 points per game and shooting 57.5 percent from three-point range since this 17-game explosion began.

Still, the Clippers have a relatively favorable remaining schedule and a real chance to crack the top two in the West. Perhaps more importantly, they are in a strong position to avoid a first-round tilt against the Lakers by staying in the top three. The Clippers probably have to unseat the reigning champions at some point to reach their goals, but it is more attainable without that first-round barrier.

By virtue of what transpired in the 2020 playoffs, nothing “matters” for the Clippers until the lights are brighter in the postseason and, honestly, everyone acknowledges that. In fact, there is some trepidation with the way they’ve performed in the clutch (at least as defined by NBA.com) this season, scoring only 1.07 points per possession in the last five minutes of tight games. Overall, though, the Clippers have done what they could plausibly do to dispel any concerns and, at the moment, they are firing on all cylinders, even as two key pieces are sidelined.

Where do the Clippers stack up in this week’s DIME power rankings? Let’s break it down.

1. L.A. Clippers (40-19, Last week — 1st)

Yes, the Clippers lost the Sixers this week. It was also a two-point game in Philadelphia, and Kawhi Leonard didn’t play, so I’ll gloss over that as a central data point. L.A. was in the top spot last week and, as noted above, they’ve basically been the league’s best team for a month. They’re staying put (for now).

2. Phoenix Suns (41-16, Last week — 2nd)

Phoenix had a wholly bizarre home loss to the Spurs this week, and that threatened to drop them in the pecking order. Then, the Suns went into Milwaukee and beat the Bucks on Monday in an OT thriller, overriding the mid-week hiccup. Phoenix’s only other loss in the last 14 games came on the road against the Clippers. That’ll work.

3. Utah Jazz (43-15, Last week — 3rd)

The Jazz haven’t been quite as superhuman lately, posting just a 5-4 record in the last nine games. That coincides with some of their first injury trouble of the season, as Utah essentially punted a game in Los Angeles after Donovan Mitchell suffered an ankle injury. Quin Snyder’s team did come back and beat the shorthanded Lakers on Monday, though, and that keeps them here.

4. Philadelphia 76ers (39-18, Last week — 4th)

Philly would’ve been higher than this if they held serve against Golden State on Monday. Then, Steph Curry happened, so the 76ers stay put. They are still the class of the East right now, so things could be worse.

5. Denver Nuggets (37-20, Last week — 7th)

I was all set to sink the Nuggets, but they just turned in a 3-0 week and did it without Jamal Murray. Obviously, the Murray injury craters their ceiling, but Nikola Jokic is just ridiculous, as evidenced by his 47-point, 15-rebound, 8-assist bonanza on Monday. Don’t overlook them too much.

6. Brooklyn Nets (38-19, Last week — 5th)

Kevin Durant played only four minutes in a close loss on Sunday, and he’s already been ruled out for Tuesday’s game against New Orleans. In the grand scheme, everything is fine for Brooklyn if they are healthy, but they need to have their pieces on the floor to take some comfort in what the Nets will be when the bright lights come on.

7. Milwaukee Bucks (35-22, Last week — 6th)

Milwaukee drops a spot this week, but not because of a 1-point loss to the Suns in overtime on Monday. The damage, such as it is, comes as a result of a home loss to Memphis earlier in the week. Still, the Bucks are plugging along, and we’ll glean a lot from a two-game set against the 76ers this week.

8. Atlanta Hawks (31-26, Last week — 8th)

The Hawks are beating the teams they are supposed to beat. There isn’t too much glamour in that, but it matters a great deal. Atlanta is 17-6 in the last 23 games, and they are slowly getting guys back on the floor after facing a jam-packed injury report for weeks. Nate McMillan’s bunch is currently in sole possession of the No. 4 spot in the East, and they’ve earned it. Individually, Trae Young and Clint Capela have been great, but Bogdan Bogdanovic is a player to circle, especially as he is shooting 51.7 percent from three-point range in April.

9. New York Knicks (31-27, Last week — 15th)

The NBA’s longest active winning streak belongs to the Knicks. New York has won six in a row, and Julius Randle just reeled off four straight 30-point games to help make that happen. They also have the next five games at home, so it has to be said that the Knicks have a real chance to secure homecourt in the first round. What a story that would be.

10. Boston Celtics (31-27, Last week — 9th)

Boston was perhaps due for a stinker, and it came on Monday. The Celtics won eight of the previous nine games, including six in a row, before a home loss to Chicago, and that was the difference between being a few spots higher this week. They are tied with New York and just a half-game behind Atlanta, so everything is fine, but the next two games (against Phoenix and Brooklyn) could be revelatory.

11. Los Angeles Lakers (35-23, Last week — 11th)

The Lakers have alternated wins and losses in 12 consecutive games. Obviously, that isn’t worthy of a party, but when a team is playing without two of the best players in the world, 6-6 will work just fine.

12. Miami Heat (30-28, Last week — 10th)

It’s been a truly vexing season for the Heat. They have been outscored for the season, ranking 20th in net rating (-1.1), but are back above .500 after two straight wins. At some point, there is some alarm for a team that has the 24th-ranked offense in the NBA, but they keep doing just enough to avoid full-on panic.

13. Golden State Warriors (29-29, Last week — 19th)

Stephen Curry is completely out of his mind. The Warriors are 6-2 in the last eight games to reach the .500 mark and, with all due respect to his supporting cast, Curry is the reason. He exploded (again) on Monday night, and Curry is averaging 40.0 points per game in the last 11 contests. He’s made at least 10 threes in four of the past five games, which is basically incalculable. I mean, come on.

14. Dallas Mavericks (30-26, Last week — 13th)

Danger zone for the Mavs? They’ve lost four of the past five, punctuated by a dreadful, 14-point home loss to the Kings on Sunday. For whatever reason, Dallas hasn’t been able to beat bad teams consistently this season, and it’s killing them in the standings.

15. Portland Trail Blazers (32-24, Last week — 12th)

The Blazers have dropped five of the last seven in their own right and, like Miami above, Portland has been outscored for the season. Credit to Damian Lillard and company for resilience, but it’s unclear just how good they actually are on the margins.

16. Memphis Grizzlies (29-27, Last week — 15th)

The Grizzlies are on a brutal seven-game road trip right now, but they’ve played solidly. They won the first two games away from home before losing a nail-biter to Denver last night, but the next four (Clippers, Blazers 2x, Nuggets) could be treacherous. If they can survive that run and still be in the No. 8 spot out West, it will be impressive.

17. Washington Wizards (24-33, Last week — 23rd)

New York has the longest winning streak in the NBA, but Washington is second on that list. The Wizards are on a five-game run, and they’ve won seven of the last eight tilts overall. Once left for dead, the Wizards are now tied for the No. 10 spot in the East. What a world.

18. San Antonio Spurs (28-28, Last week — 20th)

The Spurs are just 6-12 in the last month, and that isn’t what the doctor ordered when pursuing a playoff berth in the West. They are 4-2 in the last six, though, and all four victories came on the road. They seem to be awakening.

19. Charlotte Hornets (28-28, Last week — 17th)

Charlotte halted a four-game losing streak on Sunday with a good win over the Blazers. Terry Rozier was great in that game, going for 34 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds, and he’s been tasked with quite a bit lately. Fortunately, it seems as if LaMelo Ball could be nearing his return, and the Hornets need the help as the East race continues.

20. Toronto Raptors (24-34, Last week — 21st)

Just a few days ago, it felt for all the world as if the Raptors were ejecting from the season. On cue, they won three straight games. That little bit of life brings Toronto back in the thick of the playoff chase, just a half-game out of the play-in with more than enough time left in the campaign. Honestly, who knows?

21. Chicago Bulls (24-33, Last week — 22nd)

After a truly dismal 3-11 stretch, the Bulls just picked up two wins to end the week. That was huge for their play-in chances, and they were able to win a couple of tilts without Zach LaVine. They’re going to need him back ASAP, but Chicago is in a spot where they are pretty desperate to make playoff noise and they are back in position to do it.

22. Indiana Pacers (26-31, Last week — 14th)

Things are spiraling for the Pacers. They are on a three-game losing streak and, on Monday, word broke that Myles Turner is out indefinitely. With T.J. Warren already sidelined, Indiana was operating without a key piece, but this might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. They are still in the No. 9 spot in the East, with a two-game cushion over No. 10, but this is not what anyone envisioned for Indiana this season.

23. New Orleans Pelicans (25-32, Last week — 18th)

It’s really hard to win with the 27th-ranked defense in the NBA, and the Pelicans are finding that out. They’ll miss Kevin Durant on Tuesday in a nationally televised tilt, but New Orleans has to catch fire soon to make up the 3.5-game gap between themselves and the No. 10 spot out West.

24. Detroit Pistons (18-40, Last week — 25th)

Detroit isn’t good, but they are competitive. They are 6-7 in the last 13 games, and the Pistons beat the Thunder and Cavs this week. Let’s just agree they are better than the 18-40 record and keep it moving.

25. Minnesota Timberwolves (15-43, Last week — 24th)

Minnesota is 8-14 since the All-Star break, and their net rating (-6.0) is bad, but not disastrous. That also includes missed time for key pieces like Karl-Anthony Towns and, if you squint, there are signs of progress under Chris Finch. They also have a road set against the Kings this week. Speaking of…

26. Sacramento Kings (23-34, Last week — 27th)

The Kings are either red-hot or ice-cold with nothing in between. That was again on display with nine straight losses in the recent past, but they did ping back to a wild road win in Dallas. Maybe that will start a new streak, but the nine-game skid ended any real chance at the play-in.

27. Cleveland Cavaliers (20-37, Last week — 26th)

Cleveland is just 3-10 in the last 13 games, and they lost a head-to-head to Detroit on Monday. On the bright side, rookie lottery pick Isaac Okoro is coming on in April, averaging 11.0 points per game with high-end defensive flashes and improved efficiency.

28. Houston Rockets (15-43, Last week — 30th)

Given that Houston is 4-33 in the last 37 games, it is kind of awe-inspiring they aren’t lower than this. The Rockets did win on the road in Orlando this week, though, and that head-to-head win moves them up a touch this week.

29. Orlando Magic (18-39, Last week — 29th)

The Magic are 5-21 in the last 26 and, while Houston has an uglier mark over a longer period, the Rockets got the last laugh this week. Orlando has also lost eight of the last nine games, and they are deploying some pretty unseemly rosters right now between the rebuilding effort and ongoing injury concerns.

30. Oklahoma City Thunder (20-38, Last week — 28th)

Oklahoma City doesn’t have the worst record in the NBA, but they do have two claims to the basement. One is the NBA’s worst net rating (-9.0) for the season, and they are fortunate to have 20 wins. The other factor in play is that the Thunder have the league’s longest active losing streak, dropping the last 11 games. The rebuilding effort is ongoing and at least Poku is fun.

When comedian Ron Funches tweeted that Outkast is better than The Beatles, he likely knew his opinion would be controversial and generate plenty of discussion as a result. But he probably wasn’t expecting Andre 3000 to reach out to him and offer to send him a gift for, as he puts it, “telling the truth.” Funches explained the reasoning behind his viral tweet, analyzed the reaction to it, and revealed his correspondence with the Outkast member during last night’s episode of The Late Late Show with James Corden.

“What prompted me to write it was just my love of OutKast,” he recalled. “It’s not hatred to the Beatles — I think the Beatles are amazing.” However, he said, “Some of the things that I grew up with and that I value aren’t necessarily given the same amount of worth… They moved the entire rap industry to Atlanta, how they changed it from rapping about drugs to rapping about art, rapping about life. Erykah Badu over Yoko Ono, all day!”

Funches also said that Andre did reach out, joking that the always unconventional rapper sent him an owl — as in Harry Potter — letting him know the gift was on the way. “I hope it’s a handmade flute doesn’t work,” he giggled.

You can watch Ron’s interview with James Corden above.

As the nation braces itself for the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial, President Biden has embraced the family of George Floyd at what has to be an incredibly stressful time.

Following closing arguments in the Chauvin trial on Monday, Judge Peter Cahill has sent jurors to deliberate. The verdict is expected to come in the next few days.

“He was just calling,” George’s brother, Philonise Floyd, said about the president. “He knows how it is to lose a family member, and he knows the process of what we’re going through. So he was just letting us know that he was praying for us, hoping that everything will come out to be OK.”

Biden lost his wife and one-year-old daughter in a tragic car accident in 1972 and his son Beau to cancer in 2015.

The president’s kind-hearted actions seem like an extension of the Healer-in-Chief role he’s created for himself since taking office in January.

The nation has been in mourning after the devastation caused by COVID-19, the murder of George Floyd, and a contentious election.

On Tuesday, Biden shared his thoughts on the trial because they won’t interfere with the deliberations of the sequestered jury. Ahead of a meeting with lawmakers in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Biden said he is “praying the verdict is the right verdict” that he believes the evidence to be “overwhelming.”

The president has previously denounced Floyd’s death but hasn’t shared his opinion on the trial.

The upcoming verdict has the nation on edge. Regardless of the outcome, people are going to take to the streets. Many fear that if Chauvin gets off, there will be widespread civil unrest. However, Philonise Floyd says that his family is cautiously “optimistic.”

“Me and my family, we pray about it every day,” Floyd said. But he feels that the decision will be a reckoning on the current state of justice in America.

“I just feel that in America, if a Black man can’t get justice for this, what can a Black man get justice for?” he asked.

The family hopes that if people take to the streets, regardless of the verdict, they will be “peaceful.” But Philonise understands the grief that many are feeling across the nation. This feeling was recently exacerbated after Duante Wright was killed by a police officer a few miles from where Floyd died.

“But at the same time, I can’t stop people from doing the things that they’re doing because people are in pain,” Floyd said. “They’re hurt.”

The 12 jurors in the trial have three counts to consider as they come to a verdict. Chauvin is charged with second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. He could be found guilty of all the charges, some or none.

If Chauvin is convicted of the most serious charge, he faces 12.5 years or 15 months in prison under sentencing guidelines for a first-time offender. However, the prosecution claims there are aggravating factors that could result in a longer sentence.

Seeing as live shows haven’t been possible in over a year, fans are eager to once again see their favorite performers take the stage. Because of the excitement, people everywhere are already trying to get their hands on tickets to upcoming shows. That’s why it’s only been a week since Bad Bunny unveiled his 2022 El Último Tour Del Mundo North American tour dates — and its pre-sale has already sold out.

The 35-city tour kicks off in February in Denver and comes to an end in Miami in April. According to a report from Billboard, Bad Bunny’s 2022 tour is the quickest-selling tour since 2018, and one of the fastest-selling in the entirety of Ticketmaster’s history. In less than a week after the Bad Bunny made tickets to his tour available with a pre-sale, 480,000 tickets were sold. His April 15 pre-sale date in particular is now the top sales day for any Ticketmaster tour since Beyonce and Jay-Z’s 2018 On The Run II Tour.

In a statement about the record-breaking sales day, Ticketmaster president Mark Yovich said, “One thing is clear: the world wants to see Bad Bunny live on stage. The demand for his tour has smashed multiple records, with one of the most active on-sale periods in Ticketmaster’s history. Ticketmaster is honored to get fans one step closer to live with tickets to see this global breakthrough artist.”

El Último Tour Del Mundo is out now via Rimas Entertainment. Get it here.

Today is April 20, a day of altered mental states around the world as folks celebrate 4/20 and perhaps engage in some recreational weed usage. That takes today the perfect day for Foo Fighters to release their trippy new visual for Medicine At Midnight standout “Chasing Birds.”

The song, which itself is the closest to trippy Foo Fighters get on their new album, is accompanied by a psychedelic, 3D-animated visual. The clip begins with Dave Grohl waking up in a hot desert, birds circling him overhead. He then finds that his perception is a bit off as he looks at his hand and notices it no longer has a definite shape. The singing cactus was probably a giveaway as well. From there, things proceed in a predictably unpredictable fashion as things only get more and more strange.

Grohl and Foo Fighters have been unstoppable lately. Just this month, Grohl has announced a new autobiography titled The Storyteller, teased a new documentary called What Drives Us, collaborated with Mick Jagger on the song “Eazy Sleazy,” and shared a teaser for the show he and his mother made together, From Cradle To Stage, which is based on her book of the same name.

Watch the “Chasing Birds” video above.

Famed documentary director Alex Gibney’s penchant for scrutiny serves him (and his audience) well. His recent successes include skewering the botched pandemic response (which continues to disastrously reverberate) as well as Elizabeth Holmes and the Church of Scientology. He’s now taking aim at Big Pharma for his newest project, a two-part HBO documentary called Crime of the Century. As the trailer’s YouTube page succinctly puts things, “Big Pharma sold America a lie and made a killing.”

The trailer makes no secret of the documentary’s perspective, which is that corporate greed was nurtured (and, in fact, encouraged) by elected officials, and all of this led Purdue Pharma to aggressively market OxyContin. The highly profitable pill pushed through the FDA approvals for wide use without sufficient studies and evidence, and Justice Department efforts to halt the harm were extinguished by quietly settled lawsuits as opioid distributors and Purdue Pharma continued to build up enormous fortunes due to the pill’s overproduction. Gibney’s project also argues that this OxyContin-paved crisis made it much easier for even more dangerous prescription drugs to achieve the same results. Via an HBO press release:

With the help of whistleblowers, insiders, newly-leaked documents, exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes access to investigations, and featuring expert input from medical professionals, journalists, former and current government agents, attorneys and pharmaceutical sales representatives, as well as sobering testimony from victims of opioid addiction, Gibney’s exposé posits that drug companies are in fact largely responsible for manufacturing the very crisis they profit from, to the tune of billions of dollars… and hundreds of thousands of lives.

The Crime Of The Century debuts May 10 on HBO.

With all due respect to whatever’s happening with the European Super League, the only soccer news I care about this week is: TED LASSO SEASON 2 TRAILER.

The Apple TV+ series, about an American football coach (Jason Sudeikis) who’s recruited to lead an English Premier League team, was unexpectedly one of the best shows of 2020. Ted Lasso has a fantastic cast, clever jokes, and a refreshingly cheery tone. There are not enough charming shows about nice people doing nice things for each other. It’s like if Friday Night Lights was a comedy, but much better than that sounds (Ted Lasso and Coach Taylor should share inspiring speech tips).

Ted Lasso was renewed by Apple for a second season last August, and on Tuesday, Apple released a trailer for season two, as well as announced the premiere date: July 23. “I always hear the question: who let the dogs out (who who who who)? With respect to The Baha Men, I prefer WHEN let the dogs out (when when when when)?” the show’s official Twitter account wrote. “‘Cause guess what, Greyhounds? Our 2nd season starts 7/23! Can I get a Bah Amen!? That’s what I used to think they were called.”

You can watch the trailer for Ted Lasso season two above.

Ahead of its theatrical and streaming release this Friday, Warner Bros. has made the first seven minutes of Mortal Kombat available online, and the new footage makes it very clear that the film will not make the PG-13 mistake of its predecessors by skimping on the blood that defines the brutal video game series. Set in feudal Japan, the opening scene sets the stage for a centuries-long conflict between Hanzo Hasashi (Hiroyuki Sanada) and Bi-Han (Joe Taslim), who are best known as the fan-favorite characters Scorpion and Sub-Zero, respectively.

From the clip, we learn how Ban-Hi murdered Hanzo’s family to settle a score between their two clans. But Hanzo proves himself to be a deadly force to be reckoned as he effortlessly carves his way through Ban-Hi’s men (and their faces) after quickly fashioning Scorpion’s trademark weapon out of a nearby rope and gardening knife. However, just as the two bitter rivals get ready to go head-to-head, the footage cuts out, leaving viewers with a cliffhanger moment until they catch the film later this week in theaters or on HBO Max.

You can watch the opening scene of Mortal Kombat by following the link below. (Warning: The video is age-restricted due to the aforementioned blood, stabbing, and murder.)

Mortal Kombat fights its way into theaters and on HBO Max on April 23, 2021

Billie Eilish made major waves back in March when she debuted her new blonde hair on Instagram. Her post racked up a million likes in just six minutes and is currently at over 22 million likes, making it the most-liked Instagram post of the year so far and the third most-liked post of all time. Now Eilish and her hair are back to generating attention on Instagram as a new photo is picking up steam.

Eilish’s latest post shows her blonde hair, but this time, she’s sporting a more voluminous, blown-out look. In just the 16 hours since it was posted, the post has racked up over 12.1 million likes, which makes it one of her most-liked posts since her original blonde hair photo. Also of note is Eilish’s caption, in which she wrote, “things are comingggg.”

Finneas recently denied a rumor that Eilish was set to share major news about her next album, but it certainly does seem like she has something on the way soon, both due to her new tease and other things Finneas has been saying. In February, for instance, he told James Corden that her next album is nearly finished, saying, “She’s said it, so I’m not spilling the beans for her, but we are working really hard on her second album. It’s actually almost done, which we’re really excited about. She’s the only person I’ve worked with in-person in the whole year. So everything else has been over Zoom. Someone will send me a vocal of theirs, I’ll produce it and send it back to them. So, it’s all been this virtual world of that. But Billie and I have actually been holed up working together.”

For the first time in 24 years, Mortal Kombat returns to theaters (well, and also HBO Max, which would probably be confusing to try and explain people in 1997) in an all new story that has nothing to do with the previous two movies other than the characters. Ahead, director Simon McQuoid explains how time and resources have given this new movie an advantage, being able to draw on a richer backstory that’s been laid out in the games over the last two plus decades. And that’s true, as the movie is anchored by the battle between Scorpion and Sub-Zero, which takes place over many generations and creates a whole mystical backstory about these two and why all these people have to fight each other in the first place. (In the original 1995 version of Mortal Kombat, these two characters just kind of showed up, looked cool, and fought without much explanation.)

And this Mortal Kombat is very much rated R, so now the signature gory finishing movies from the game will be depicted in the film. But there’s a difference between video game violence and movie violence and McQuoid explains how, if they went too far, then the movie could get into NC-17 territory, which is not what they wanted.

So I was trying to get in your head. I rewatched the movie from ’95 and it’s kind of weird you have to make a movie with the same group of characters with the same abilities, just “a different way.” As in, even with superhero reboots the villain is usually different. These are all the same chess pieces. Does that make sense?

Yeah, no, it makes total sense what you’re saying. And I think the thing you’re talking I felt was a really exciting part of the creative process for me: how to make these characters that have had iterations before, how to make them feel really powerful and really believable and give a very elevated version of them that we haven’t really seen before. And that’s also goes to how their powers manifest and we have the benefit of a great deal of advantage in visual effects. So those sorts of things, nothing had been done really to this level on Mortal Kombat, game aside. The game is amazingly well done and incredible…

Yeah, well, Rambo is in it now.

Yeah, exactly. So, that was something that was very exciting. And one of the images I’ve seen where someone put the 1995 version of Sub-Zero next to the 2021 version of Sub-Zero next to each other and kind of what they look like, and that to me was really a visual encapsulation of what I was trying to achieve. To elevate these characters. And I love the process. I thought it was a real privilege for me to be able to take those characters and elevate them to a place where they felt really gutsy and interesting and layered and rich.

One of the big differences are Sub-Zero and Scorpion. Because in the ’95 movie, they’re just kind of cool looking and fight. In your movie there’s a mythology between them.

I also think that we, again, we’ve had 30 years of the guys at NetherRealm building backstory and really adding a dense, rich history to this stuff. So that we’re able to probably draw on more stuff than they would have in the game, in the original film. So we did. We thought that was a really, really important ingredient to the backstory, not only of each of these characters, but also the whole Mortal Kombat canon. We wanted to do that justice by opening the gate and really having that rivalry be the spine of the film, of its structure. So I just think we looked at all ingredients that were given to us and perhaps back in the original film they just didn’t have that. Different world, different time.

What character were you most looking forward to kind of sinking your teeth into?

Well, and this might be a bit of a bland answer to your question, but the actual process of taking each of these characters and elevating them into a space where they haven’t really been presented in this way, that was the most joyous part of it. So, therefore, each character just came with its own set of challenges and fun aspect to it. For instance, Kung Lao, when we got the hat, we got the balance of that hat right. It was a really, really good day in pre-production, because it looks effortless the way Max Huang handles it and it’s all down to the way he goes about handling it and Max is fantastic, but that took a lot of work, that hat. I really loved that aspect of it. I love pre-production. I love designing. I love the visual, how we build and create those things. And how we’re dealing with our costumes, and we didn’t always get them right first time. There was a whole different look for Sub-Zero that just didn’t work…

Oh, how so? Because people have a good idea of what he looks like.

Yeah, absolutely. But what we did in pre-production was we had this giant room, and all around the walls of this huge room we put every single iteration of all our characters up on the wall. So we could see the through line of the essential strands of DNA, through lines, of what was important to each character. Because some of them have very different iterations of looks that bounce around quite a bit over the years. And even Sonia, even though what she’s wearing and what she looks like, it’s very simple and very human and normal, she’s had a few different looks across the years. So, what you can do is you can take these through lines and you can go off in different trajectories. For instance, the Sub-Zero example, it looked like Sub-Zero, but the crucial step, when it goes from concept and illustration and ideas, then to reality, that is a really important and that’s the step where you see whether it succeeded or not. It was that step that didn’t quite land on the first iteration of Sub-Zero. It wasn’t that he didn’t look like him, it was just more like, wow, he doesn’t look powerful. It just lacked that screen presence.

You also expanded on Jax in this movie, especially compared to the first movie.

Yeah. Mehcad [Brooks] did a great job. He’s a fantastic actor and really put a lot of time and effort into thinking about how to give him some substance. And with the arms, again, like I was saying, there are many different iterations of those arms over the years, but we ended up going back to the very early ones. And some of the arms we designed and we built, it doesn’t really look like Jax because there’s been so many mechanical arms and hands and legs and bodies and Iron Mans. And there’s been so much that’s been done that it was very easy just to fall into, oh, it feels like it’s coming out of Iron Man, or that feels like something from that. So we went back to the original: very chrome, if you remember those ones, which just had the lines in them that’s sort of organic and smooth and muscular. And we sort of took that as the blueprint visual and said, “All right. That is Jax there. So now how do we bring it to a modern iteration?” And so that’s why we ended up with a slightly tarnished titanium look because it felt more like Jax. So each of these characters got built through many people bringing their expertise. Obviously the actors and who they were, but then the costume and visual effects and special effects and, yeah, everyone came together. Hair and makeup and that was a great process. Really great team of people.

You’ve mentioned how you wanted to avoid an NC-17 with some of the death scenes? And how a video game can get away with a gory finishing move and a movie can’t as much because we process it differently. So how did you balance that? What’s the trick to prevent this from becoming too grim?

I mean, to be clear, I never said we nearly got an NC-17. What I was saying was it wouldn’t be hard for us to jump into that space, given the material. So two slightly different things. And it’s something we were really careful of because we didn’t want to get there. It was just a constant assessment and calibration and building – and we’d always just look and make sure we weren’t totally getting it wrong, the way the shots were blocked. They go by pretty quick, and that was by design. We felt that if you romanced them and slowed them down and made them too gratuitous in that sense, which is actually an element of the game – and I think in a game you can get away with that – whereas in reality, you can’t do that. It becomes a totally different thing. And so, yeah, it was just a matter of studying and assessing all the time and trying not to take your eye off the ball with that stuff. So, just constant analysis really.

‘Mortal Kombat’ premieres Friday, April 23rd via theaters and HBO Max. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.