Mortal Kombat 2 Writer Explains Why Cole Young Had to Die

Major spoilers for Mortal Kombat 2 below.

Cole Young never had the easiest relationship with Mortal Kombat fans. When Lewis Tan’s original character — invented specifically for the 2021 film rather than drawn from the games — was introduced as the first movie’s protagonist, the response from the hardcore faithful was, to put it gently, not warm. So when Mortal Kombat 2 opened with Cole getting his head crushed by Shao Kahn in one of the film’s very first fights, it wasn’t exactly a bolt from the blue for anyone who’d been paying attention online.

But it was entirely intentional — and writer Jeremy Slater is happy to explain exactly why.

“The idea was very much we need some deaths that are going to shock everybody,” Slater told GamesRadar+ exclusively. “I love Lewis Tan. I think Lewis is the best, but Cole was a character that the hardcore fans did not respond to in the first movie, and they were very vocal about that, and very vocal about calling for his head. So Cole was a great example of a character where killing him would shock the casual fans, the people who are not terminally online and just went to see the movie and enjoyed it. It’s going to be a really shocking moment for them, but the hardcore fans are expecting him to die.”

It’s a calculated play — and an unusually candid one. Slater, who wasn’t involved in writing the first film, came into the sequel knowing exactly what the fanbase felt about Cole and used that knowledge as a storytelling tool. Give the hardcore fans what they’ve been demanding, and you still get a genuine shock moment for the casual audience who just showed up for the action.

Liu Kang’s Death Was a Different Kind of Shock

The flip side of that equation is Liu Kang. Where Cole’s death lands differently depending on your level of fandom, Liu Kang’s demise during the film’s climax — which clears the path for Kitana to take her revenge on Shao Kahn and win the tournament — hits the hardcore crowd in a completely different way.

“You contrast [Cole’s death] with someone like Liu Kang, and there’s a character that is not going to be that shocking for the casual fans, but for the hardcore fans who know that canonically, Liu Kang is the guy who wins the tournament, Liu Kang is the guy who kills Shao Kahn — that is a shocking moment that tells you, ‘Oh, the gloves are off now. Nobody is safe,’” Slater explained to Total Film. “We have now diverged from canon in a way that leaves the ultimate fate of the tournament up in the air.”

“So it was really about figuring out who are those deaths that are going to have the most impact, that are going to really drive the story forward, and who is going to surprise the most amount of people, and then just trying to find a satisfying balance.”

Of course, death in the Mortal Kombat universe comes with an asterisk. The presence of necromancer Quan Chi means the door is never fully closed — Sonya Blade has already made it clear that forcing Quan Chi to resurrect their fallen friends is the plan going into the next film. Slater acknowledged as much: “Knowing that we are Mortal Kombat, we always do have the ability to resurrect fallen characters or bring back actors we like in different ways. So even though some of those characters I love quite a bit, and love the actors playing them, some of those people who got a little bit less to do this time around, it doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the last time we’re going to see them in a Mortal Kombat movie.”

The Character Who Almost Made the Cut — and the One Who Definitely Won’t Be Back

Alongside the deaths, Slater also opened up about a character who never made it to the screen at all. Speaking to GamesRadar, he revealed that Tremor — the geokinetic ninja with rock-and-metal powers — was originally written into the script to fight Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) and die in the process.

“We almost had Tremor in the movie at one point for the Sonya fight, just because I’ve always liked Tremor and he’s got really fun, really cool powers,” Slater said. But the character just wasn’t clicking on the page. “It was one of those smack my own forehead moments of like, Tremor wasn’t working because I wasn’t able to devote enough time to sort of sell him as a character.”

The solution turned out to be sitting right in front of him: Sindel, Kitana’s mother, played by Ana Thu Nguyen. “Once we swapped [Tremor] out [for] Sindel, it immediately became more visceral, and there’s just more skin in the game. And Sindel’s powers were so much fun that it felt like she belonged in that pit of spikes in a way that never felt right with Tremor.”

As for who won’t be coming back at all — Slater was equally direct in an exclusive conversation with ComicBook. Goro, the four-armed CGI behemoth from the 2021 film, is off the table. “I don’t know if I would necessarily be chomping at the bit to sort of resurrect them, just because they weren’t my version of the characters, and they don’t necessarily seem relevant or necessary to the stories that I’m trying to tell,” he said. “Goro is a good example, just because I think one of the things we have sort of discovered along the way is that watching two human martial artists fight is a lot of fun, and watching people shadowbox CGI monsters is not as fun.”

It’s a philosophy that seems to be working. Mortal Kombat 2 earned $40 million domestically and $23 million internationally in its opening weekend, putting it just $21 million away from surpassing the entire box office run of the first film after a single weekend. The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes sits at 89% — a significant jump from its predecessor — suggesting that leaning into human-versus-human combat and giving the fanbase the character moments they actually wanted was the right call.

Whether Cole Young stays dead, or Quan Chi has other ideas, remains part of the fun heading into whatever comes next. But for now, Slater seems pretty comfortable with the choices he made — and so does the audience.