Paul W.S. Anderson jumped into the effects challenges of “Mortal Kombat” eagerly, finding various ways to apply the jargon and other elements he’d come across during his studies. Although the director trusted in the movie’s potential, he still found himself nervous during the film’s opening weekend, worried a potential failure might compromise his career in Hollywood.

Fortunately for Anderson, “Mortal Kombat” was a hit, staying at the top of the domestic box office for several weeks in a row. Thanks to the film’s success, Anderson was able to move on to bigger budget genre movies like “Event Horizon” and the “Resident Evil” series, the latter taken on by Anderson partially due to his skipping out on a “Mortal Kombat” sequel, explaining to The Hollywood Reporter that his “not doing ‘Mortal Kombat II’ is kind of the reason I’ve ended up doing ‘Resident Evil’ one, two, three, four, five, six…”

“Mortal Kombat” not only began Anderson’s film career in Hollywood proper, it proved video game movie adaptations could be profitable, even decent, popcorn films. As Anderson recalled in 2020, he saw making “Mortal Kombat” as not just a mercenary career move but rather “as a chance to bring something I truly loved to the screen.” The filmmaker could’ve bluffed all he liked when it came to knowing the ins and outs of CGI, but without the enthusiastic love for the material, the ruse probably wouldn’t have worked.