Potentially great news for Marvel and Mortal Kombat fans both, as Moon Knight head writer Jeremy Slater is set to pen the sequel to the Mortal Kombat feature film, released in 2021.
As reported by Digital Trends (opens in new tab), Mortal Kombat's return to the big screen was a pretty substantial success, achieving around 5.6 million individual streams on HBO Max in its release month alone. As such, it's easy to see why Warner Bros. would look to take on some notable Marvel talent for writing the movie's sequel.
Slater, who also worked on Fox's The Exorcist reboot and Netflix's Umbrella Academy, took to Twitter to confirm his involvement with Mortal Kombat 2, promising that the sequel will be bigger and more ambitious than its predecessor. Not surprising, considering that was also a trend with the original arcade releases of Mortal Kombat and its wonderfully gory sequel.
Beyond excited to be joining this team! We’re building something bigger and better and bloodier that’s going to blow people’s minds. https://t.co/ErVtmcvckHJanuary 26, 2022
According to Deadline (opens in new tab), no actors have been confirmed to be returning to the sequel thus far, but it's safe to expect fan favorites like Liu Kang, Scorpion and Sonya to make the cut. Given that the original Mortal Kombat 2 expanded its character roster exponentially, we imagine that the upcoming movie will follow suit.
Kitana seems like a shoo-in, as does Noob-Saibot (if the movie decides to stick close to Mortal Kombat lore, that is). We'd also love to see Slater and co. really push the boat out, though, and maybe take in some of MK's more obscure characters. Havik, anyone?
It's still very early days for Mortal Kombat 2 as a project, of course, and it's difficult to say when the movie will land in theaters and on our screens. Given that the original only released last year, we wouldn't expect the sequel to show up until 2023 or 2024 at the earliest.
Last year's Mortal Kombat movie was, while far from perfect, a solid attempt at translating one of gaming's most iconic gore fests to theaters, with all of its bloody faculties intact. Most other movie and TV outings for the series seemed to fall flat in one way or another - the 1995 cult classic movie, for instance, watered down the violence in favor of appealing to a wider audience.
Here's hoping that Mortal Kombat 2 will be just as Slater suggests: not only bigger and bloodier, but a marked improvement over the promising foundations laid by the first movie. Perhaps we'll even get to experience the gruesome tournament that made the original arcade game - and its antagonist Shao Kahn - so incredibly memorable.
