Screenwriter and producer Jeremy Slater has talked up Mortal Kombat 2, describing it as “so much funnier and bigger” than the first movie.
In an interview with ComicBook.com, Slater discussed squeezing a cast of 20 familiar fighters into Mortal Kombat 2, which is due out Oct 24, 2025 and stars Karl Urban as Johnny Cage.
“It’s very easy for these things to become three-to-four-hour, sprawling epics, so you always have to be judicious in cutting things down and what’s the emotional story we are telling and what is the story the audience cares about,” Slater explained.
“Then, making sure when you get to those moments that matter — the fights, the fatalities, the surprises, the deaths — that they land and they are as satisfying as everyone wants them to be. I think we nailed it. They had the best stunt team in the business working on this thing. The actors are phenomenal. It’s so much funnier and bigger than the first movie.”
Slater then talked about attending test screenings, which he said were full of Mortal Kombat fans reacting to the movie “the way I reacted to Avengers: Endgame.”
“I am so excited for people to see the movie,” he said. “It’s been done for a while. We’ve been waiting for the right release date and waiting for the right window. I have been to those test screenings, which are full of Mortal Kombat fans, and watching them react to it the way I reacted to Avengers: Endgame. They were cheering and jumping out of their seats. Every joke is landing and they are loving it. It’s one of the greatest moments of my life. That’s why you get into this business.”
In March, we finally got a first look at a number of new characters set to appear in Mortal Kombat 2, including Martyn Ford’s Shao Kahn and Adeline Rudolph’s Kitana, alongside the returning Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion.
Mortal Kombat fans had wondered how Karl Urban, who plays Billy Butcher in The Boys, would look as Mortal Kombat’s fan-favorite egocentric Hollywood star in live action form after his image appeared in an in-universe poster for a Cage movie.
In Mortal Kombat 2 we see a fresh-faced Urban with Cage’s trademark hair and sunglasses in a typical martial arts pose. In the background, we see Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Mehcad Brooks as Jax, and Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade.
Mortal Kombat developer NetherRealm’s Ed Boon has said of Johnny Cage’s appearance in the sequel: “His integration into the Mortal Kombat story and universe is a big part of what this movie explores. He’s a washed-up Hollywood guy thrown into this magical, ultra-violent thing. Karl, his depiction of Johnny Cage is different than our games in some ways. He’s adding his own flare to it, but I think it’ll feel fresh. There’s like a novelty factor in there.”
Expect a “ridiculously hilarious” character introduction for Johnny Cage, Boon teased. Director Simon McQuoid added: “We wanted a character that wasn’t just completely silly, comic book… It’s a character that could instantly go there and become too light and throwaway if we were to lean too much into the kind of cheese. The casting of Karl Urban for that role allowed that character to have more depth.”
Meanwhile, Damon Herriman (Better Man) plays Quan Chi in Mortal Kombat 2, and Josh Lawson and Max Huang make a surprise return as Kano and Kung Lao, two characters who bit the dust in the first movie. How can that be? Boon said existing lore from the Mortal Kombat video games, which famously play fast and loose with the alive or dead status of its characters, makes anything possible: “So we deal with spirits and the NetherRealm and things like that,” he said. “There are ways to bring dead characters back.”
And finally, Tati Gabrielle (The Last of Us Season 2) plays Jade, and Ana Thu Nguyen (NCIS: Sydney) plays Queen Sindel.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
