• Mortal Kombat II opened to $61.5 million globally in its first weekend, making a third film all but certain
• Writer Jeremy Slater says he has “dozens” of characters planned across a potential six-film franchise
• Ermac, Shinnok, Kuai Liang’s Sub-Zero, Cyrax, and Tanya are among the biggest names still waiting for their live-action debut
• Slater confirmed Shinnok’s Amulet was deliberately seeded in MK2 to set up the Fallen Elder God’s arrival
• Liu Kang’s mysterious “death” in MK2 is being saved as a major story thread for the threequel

Mortal Kombat II has landed in theaters with a $61.5 million global opening weekend, and the franchise is clearly just getting started. The sequel brought Johnny Cage, Kitana, Quan Chi, Jade, Shao Kahn, and Baraka into the fold — plus resurrected Kano from the dead — but even with that packed roster, there’s a long list of iconic Kombatants who still haven’t gotten their moment on the big screen.

Writer Jeremy Slater, who grew up feeding quarters into Mortal Kombat arcade machines and now holds the keys to the entire film franchise, isn’t shy about his ambitions. Speaking with Variety, he laid it out plainly: “I have dozens of characters that I want to bring into live action. Some of them are on deck next, and some of them are being saved for a hypothetical 4, 5 or 6. In success, we will get to as many of the classics as we possibly can, but we always want to be careful to never overload the audience.”

A fourth, fifth, and sixth film. That’s the vision. And with Warner Bros. having greenlit Mortal Kombat III back in October 2025 — seven months before MK2 even hit theaters — and Slater already deep into a second draft of that script, the pipeline is very real. So who are the fan-favorites still waiting in the wings?

The Most Glaring Absence: Kuai Liang’s Sub-Zero

If there’s one character whose absence from Mortal Kombat II genuinely surprised fans, it’s Kuai Liang — the younger brother of Bi-Han and the Sub-Zero most people actually grew up loving. In the games, after Bi-Han was killed and became the undead wraith Noob Saibot, his brother stepped into the Sub-Zero mantle. He had the same ice powers but a fundamentally different soul — less cruel, more conflicted, and eventually one of the heroes.

The 2021 film gave us Bi-Han’s death at Scorpion’s hands as one of its standout moments. The sequel brought Bi-Han back as a shadow-wielding wraith. But Kuai Liang? Still nowhere to be seen. Given how central the Sub-Zero name is to the franchise’s identity, and how compelling the idea of Scorpion eventually forging an alliance with a new Sub-Zero could be, this feels like the most obvious move for Mortal Kombat III.

Cyrax, Sektor, and the Cyber Lin Kuei

Tied directly to Kuai Liang’s story are Cyrax and Sektor, the cybernetic assassins who represent one of the franchise’s most visually distinctive concepts. After Sub-Zero defected from the Lin Kuei clan over their decision to mechanize all of its members, some warriors — like Sektor — volunteered for the transformation. Others, like Cyrax, were turned into cyborgs against their will.

Cyrax’s arc is particularly rich: a warrior who loses their humanity, then fights to reclaim it. The connections to Sub-Zero, the Lin Kuei, and the broader lore make them a natural fit for wherever the franchise takes its ninja storyline next. The Mortal Kombat films have leaned heavily into fantasy so far — Jax’s robotic arms being the main sci-fi exception — so Cyrax and Sektor would bring something genuinely different to the screen. And given that the characters were partly inspired by Boba Fett and the Predator’s Yautja, there’s even room for Johnny Cage to riff on them in the way he dropped Lord of the Rings and Squid Game references in MK2.

Shinnok: The Villain Already Being Set Up

Of all the characters on this list, Shinnok is the one the films are most clearly building toward. A fallen Elder God banished to the Netherrealm for attempting to conquer Earthrealm, Shinnok is arguably the biggest villain in the entire franchise — a tier above even Shao Kahn. He’s the son of a Titan, the ruler of the Netherrealm, and in the games, it takes Raiden literally beheading him to stop his reign.

Mortal Kombat II made a point of featuring the Amulet of Shinnok as a key plot device — Shao used it to achieve immortality — and Slater confirmed to Variety that this was entirely intentional. “I can’t say when he’s coming, but we’re certainly always in conversation about what our plans for Shinnok are,” he said. “And those plans do start with the introduction of the Amulet in this movie.” The breadcrumb has been laid. The Fallen Elder God is coming.

Ermac: The Character Born From a Glitch

Ermac has one of the most unusual origin stories in gaming history. He began as an urban legend — fans spotted “ERMAC” in the code of the original Mortal Kombat and convinced themselves it was a secret red ninja, a counterpart to the yellow Scorpion, blue Sub-Zero, and green Reptile. In reality, it was short for “Error Macro,” a glitch notification. But the myth took on a life of its own, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 eventually made it official by adding Ermac as a secret character.

He’s been a franchise mainstay ever since — a being made up of the amalgamated souls of countless warriors slain in Outworld, bound and controlled by Shao Kahn. Telekinesis, teleportation, levitation, soul projectiles. And here’s what makes his film debut feel overdue: Mortal Kombat II opens with the brutal death of King Jerrod, Kitana’s father. In the lore, Jerrod’s soul is one of those trapped within Ermac. That’s not an accident. The groundwork is already there.

Tanya and the Edenia Angle

Tanya hasn’t appeared in as many games as some of the heavy hitters on this list, but she fills a specific and valuable narrative role — the traitor from within. Born in Edenia under Shao Kahn’s rule, she harbored a deep resentment toward Sindel and Kitana even after they reclaimed their kingdom. When Shinnok and Quan Chi came looking for a way into the realm, Tanya opened the door for them.

She also developed a close bond with Mileena — Kitana’s monstrous half-Tarkatan clone — and the two conspired together against their shared enemies. With Kitana now firmly established in the film universe, and Mileena’s absence from MK2 leaving fans wanting more of that twisted sisterly dynamic, Tanya slots in as the kind of complex antagonist who could add real dramatic texture to Mortal Kombat III. She’s not just a villain. She’s a personal betrayal.

Erron Black: The Wildcard

Erron Black is a newer addition to the franchise — he debuted in Mortal Kombat X — but he immediately became one of its most distinctive characters. An immortal gunslinger who made a deal with Shang Tsung for a piece of eternal life, Black has been walking the earth for around 150 years, accumulating the kind of hard-won expertise that makes him genuinely dangerous. Twin revolvers, rifles, blades. No magic, no cyborg tech. Just a man who’s had a century and a half to get very good at killing people.

In a franchise full of sorcerers and gods and four-armed monsters, there’s something almost refreshing about that. His signature Money Shot move — ricocheting a bullet off a coin to hit his target — is exactly the kind of stylized, crowd-pleasing moment that plays beautifully on screen. Slater’s vision of Mortal Kombat as New Line’s answer to Fast and Furious leaves plenty of room for a character like Black, who could slot naturally into any number of spinoff scenarios.

Nightwolf and the Matoka Legacy

Nightwolf has been part of the Mortal Kombat roster since the third game, and what makes the character particularly compelling for a film adaptation is the mythology around the name itself. In Mortal Kombat 11, Nightwolf isn’t just one person — it’s a mantle passed down through generations of the Matoka Tribe. Whoever carries the name inherits a host of abilities: a Tomahawk, powerful shamanic magic, and access to the memories and experiences of every Nightwolf who came before.

That’s a genuinely cinematic concept — a warrior who is simultaneously an individual and a living legacy. It also gives filmmakers real flexibility in how they introduce the character and which version of the story they want to tell.

What Comes Next

Mortal Kombat III is already in motion. Slater is close to finishing a second draft, and the studio’s enthusiasm is evident — WB has positioned Mortal Kombat alongside DC, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones as one of its core franchise assets. The first film’s lifetime gross was $84 million; MK2 crossed $60 million in its first week alone.

Several characters from the first two films are also in line for returns. Liu Kang’s fate at the end of MK2 — whether he died or ascended to another plane — is being deliberately left open. “What actually happened to him in that moment is absolutely a mystery that’s going to be explored in Mortal Kombat III,” Slater told Variety. Kabal, Reptile, Mileena, and Goro are all possibilities too, since as Slater put it, “death is never permanent” in this universe.

And then there’s Lewis Tan. Slater killed off Cole Young — the original-character POV lead from the first film — in the opening of MK2, acknowledging the character was a studio mandate that never quite fit. But he’s clearly not done with the actor himself: “That doesn’t mean you’re not going to see Lewis Tan again in some regards.”

The roster is deep. The plans are ambitious. And if the box office keeps cooperating, Mortal Kombat’s cinematic universe is only just beginning to fill out its character select screen.

The post MK Characters Still Missing From the Movies After MK 2 appeared first on Cream.

• Screenwriter Jeremy Slater says he didn’t know his Fantastic Four script was discarded until he watched the finished film in theaters
• Slater told THR he had been confidently telling people the reboot would be “the next Dark Knight trilogy” for two years
• The 2015 film, directed by Josh Trank, holds a 9% Rotten Tomatoes score and lost an estimated $80–$100 million for 20th Century Fox
• Miles Teller, who played Mister Fantastic, previously suggested “one really important person” ruined the film
• The Fantastic Four have since been rebooted in the MCU, with the new cast set to appear in Avengers: Doomsday this December

For roughly two years, Jeremy Slater was the most confident man in Hollywood. He had co-written what he believed was a genuinely great Fantastic Four script, had a wonderful creative partnership with director Josh Trank, and was actively telling anyone who would listen that they were sitting on something special. “You guys, just wait for Fantastic Four,” he remembered telling people. “We’re the next Christopher Nolan. We’ve got the next Dark Knight trilogy on the way.“

Then he sat down at the screening.

“It wasn’t until I was sitting there in that first audience and realizing, ‘Oh no, something happened here,'” Slater told The Hollywood Reporter. “There was nothing in there that remotely resembled what I had set out to do.”

Slater, whose new film Mortal Kombat II is in theaters now, was remarkably candid about what it’s like to be a writer on a massive studio blockbuster — which is to say, almost completely in the dark. He said he had no idea there was any trouble on set because he simply wasn’t there. The call that effectively ended his involvement came in the form of a familiar Hollywood euphemism. “I got the call that you almost always get on these big blockbuster movies: ‘Hey, we’re going to bring in some fresh eyes,'” he said. “Then the next time you see the movie is when you’re sitting down at the screening three years later.”

He wasn’t even told his script had been thrown out entirely. That part he had to figure out himself, in real time, watching a film that bore no resemblance to the one he thought he’d written.

What Actually Went Wrong With Fantastic Four

The 2015 reboot — starring Miles Teller as Mister Fantastic, Kate Mara as Invisible Woman, Jamie Bell as The Thing, and Michael B. Jordan as Human Torch — was intended to launch a whole new franchise for 20th Century Fox. Instead, it became one of the most notorious misfires in superhero movie history. It earned just $168 million worldwide against a budget that left the studio facing losses somewhere between $80 and $100 million. Its Rotten Tomatoes score sits at a brutal 9%. The Razzie Awards gave it Worst Picture, and Trank picked up Worst Director. The planned sequel was quietly buried.

Slater is careful not to point fingers at Trank — he says his working relationship with the director was genuinely great. But he’s honest about what the experience taught him. “When you’re a writer and you’re playing in other people’s sandboxes, it’s really out of your control,” he said. “You don’t really have any bearing on the quality of the finished product. You just hope that your collaborators all want to make the same movie you wanted to make.”

Miles Teller has been somewhat less diplomatic about the whole thing. “I think it’s unfortunate for that, because so many people worked so hard on that movie and, honestly, maybe there was one really important person who fucked it all up,” he said previously. Teller also recalled the moment he knew things had gone sideways: “When I first saw the movie, I remember talking to one of the studio heads and I was like, ‘I think we’re in trouble.'” He’d taken the role partly out of a practical calculation — “if you want to be taken seriously as a leading man you gotta get on this superhero train” — and this was supposed to be his moment. The casting, he still maintains, was spectacular. Everything else, less so.

The Franchise Gets Another Shot — This Time in the MCU

Of course, Marvel’s First Family has since been handed a proper reset. The Fantastic Four: First Steps brought in an entirely new cast, and they’re already headed into the MCU’s biggest crossover event yet with Avengers: Doomsday, arriving December 18.

Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who plays The Thing in the new iteration, recently opened up about what it’s like to navigate a production of that scale — and his experience sounds almost comically different from the controlled chaos of the 2015 film. Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, he described Doomsday as more “compartmentalized” than First Steps, where the Fantastic Four cast was present “every day, every day, having a sense of the thing.” On Doomsday, the sheer size of it was a lot to hold in his head. “How it was connecting to other universes, I would have to go back to, like, ‘Joe [Russo] can you just, I know you’ve talked me through, can you just tell me one more time?'”

He also confirmed he never actually saw a complete script. “Those scripts change quite a bit,” he said. “Probably not, it probably didn’t have a full, like, third act. I don’t think it had an ending. I don’t think anyone gets to see that stuff.”

There were some compensations, though. Moss-Bachrach described working alongside Robert Downey Jr. — returning to the MCU as Doctor Doom — as a genuine highlight. “What a wonderful man. Like, what a great set leader he was. He’s been doing this for a long time and he was so generous and really, like, checking in, making sure everyone was good. Really good coach energy there.” He also recalled looking around the room at the assembled cast — which includes Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Mackie, Letitia Wright, the Fox-era X-Men, and more — and having a quiet moment of disbelief. “There’s Ian McKellen, and there’s Channing Tatum. It’s a lot.”

For Jeremy Slater, the whole Fantastic Four saga is clearly just one of those war stories you carry with you in this business. He walked in thinking he was building a legacy. He walked out of a theater wondering what happened. “You always go in with the highest of hopes and the best of aspirations,” he said. “But sometimes the projects don’t turn out the way that you dreamed about or envisioned.”

The 2015 film is currently streaming on Disney+, if you’re feeling brave.

The post 2015 Fantastic Four Writer Didn’t Know His Script Was Scrapped Until He Saw the Movie appeared first on Cream.

• Writer Jeremy Slater says not involving NetherRealm Studios was a major mistake on the first Mortal Kombat film
• Mortal Kombat 2 opened to a franchise-best $63 million globally, with $40 million domestically
• Producer Todd Garner publicly attacked critics before issuing an apology after the film’s strong debut
• The sequel currently holds a 65–66% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes but an impressive 89% audience score
• NetherRealm boss Ed Boon has confirmed a new Mortal Kombat game is in development

Mortal Kombat 2 is having a moment — and the people behind it are being unusually candid about what went wrong the first time around. Writer Jeremy Slater, who came on board for the sequel, told Forbes that failing to loop in the game’s actual creators was one of the biggest missteps of the 2021 original.

“One of the mistakes we wanted to rectify from that first movie was not having NetherRealm Studios as creatively involved as they could have been,” Slater said. For the sequel, that changed entirely — the developers were “involved every step of the way.”

It’s a telling admission. Despite NetherRealm and Warner Bros. Pictures both sitting under the Warner Bros. umbrella, the studio that has been living and breathing Mortal Kombat since acquiring the franchise from Midway was essentially kept at arm’s length during production of the first film. The result was a movie that felt like it had been assembled using Wikipedia research rather than genuine franchise knowledge.

“You can go on Wikipedia and ask, ‘What are the most popular stages? What are the best finishing moves?'” Slater explained. “But it’s so different to be able to go directly to the horse’s mouth, the guy who has been interacting with the fan base for 34 years.” Having that direct line gave Slater what he described as a “sort of cheat sheet available anytime we had questions about the lore and mythology.”

A Franchise-Best Opening Weekend

The numbers suggest it paid off. Mortal Kombat 2 pulled in $40 million domestically in its opening weekend and $63 million globally — a significant leap over the original’s $23 million domestic debut, which was, to be fair, released during the pandemic against a $55 million budget. For context, the original 1995 Mortal Kombat film also opened to $23 million, and 1997’s Annihilation managed just $16 million. By every historical measure, this is the biggest opening the franchise has ever seen.

Critics are warmer on it too. The sequel currently sits at around 65–66% on Rotten Tomatoes, roughly 10 points higher than the first film. The audience score tells an even stronger story: 89%, compared to 85% for the original. Fans, clearly, are happy.

What’s actually working, according to multiple reviews, is a shift in focus. The first film’s original creation Cole Young — a blank-slate protagonist invented specifically to onboard newcomers — dominated the 2021 movie to the frustration of longtime fans. In the sequel, he’s sidelined almost immediately, and in a move that apparently earned quiet cheers in at least a few cinemas, he meets a very definitive end courtesy of Shao Kahn and a sledgehammer on the Dead Pool stage. The film moves on with barely a shrug, which feels entirely intentional.

In his place, the sequel leans into Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage and Adeline Rudolph’s Kitana — characters with actual history in the franchise. Rudolph in particular has been highlighted as a genuine standout, with Kitana getting one of the film’s more emotionally coherent arcs. Urban’s Cage is more divisive; some feel the film never fully lets him be the chaotic, lovable disaster the games made him, while others are simply glad he’s there at all.

The criticisms that do exist tend to center on pacing. With Mortal Kombat lore being as sprawling as it is — Outworld politics, Netherrealm intrigue, Sub-Zero, Noob Saibot, Sindel, Quan Chi, Shang Tsung — the film has been accused of speedrunning its own mythology. Characters like Sindel, one of the franchise’s most iconic fighters, get shortchanged. Her legendary hair attack? Nowhere to be seen. Casual viewers unfamiliar with the games may find themselves lost before the first act is over.

Still, the consensus is clear: Mortal Kombat 2 is a meaningful step forward. The gore delivers, the fatalities land, and there are stretches — particularly a Kung Lao vs. Liu Kang sequence that multiple reviewers have singled out — where the film genuinely clicks into something special.

Producer Todd Garner’s Critic Controversy

Not everyone connected to the film handled the mixed reviews with grace, at least not initially. Producer Todd Garner took to social media after the film’s early scores came in, writing: “Some of these reviews are cracking me up. It’s clear they have never played the game and have no idea what the fans want or ANY of the rules/canon of Mortal Kombat. One reviewer was mad that a guy ‘had a laser eye!’ Why the fuck do we still allow people that don’t have any love for the genre review these movies! Baffling.”

The post drew immediate pushback, with many pointing out that audiences shouldn’t need to have played a video game to follow — or fairly critique — a film adaptation. After the strong opening weekend numbers came in, Garner walked it back.

“I wanted to address a comment I made regarding some of the critical responses to our movie,” he wrote. “I realize that, in my eagerness to defend the people who worked so hard on this film, I lost sight of the fact that our job is to create the best possible movie — not only for the fans, but for anyone coming to the cinema. Once that movie is out in the world, no one is above criticism. For that, I apologize.”

It’s worth noting Garner isn’t alone in this particular frustration. Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto made similar waves recently when he called it “truly baffling” that reviewers were negative about The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and was similarly criticized for implying critics should be cheerleaders for the industry rather than independent voices.

What Comes Next for the Franchise

If Mortal Kombat 2’s final act is any indication, a third film is already being set up. Slater says his dream is that NetherRealm remains “this creatively involved with every installment of Mortal Kombat going forward because they are the lifeblood of what we’re doing here.”

On the game side, NetherRealm boss Ed Boon confirmed during a recent interview — timed, naturally, to the film’s release — that a new Mortal Kombat game is in development following Mortal Kombat 1’s successful run of 8 million copies sold. He also teased that the studio is “definitely doing more” beyond Mortal Kombat, which has predictably reignited speculation about a long-awaited Injustice 3. Whether that other project surfaces before or after the next MK game remains anyone’s guess.

There’s also an amusing naming problem on the horizon: with a movie called Mortal Kombat 2 now in theaters, and an original arcade game called Mortal Kombat II already a piece of gaming history, NetherRealm is going to have to get creative with whatever they call the sequel to Mortal Kombat 1. Three projects sharing the same title might be a fatality the franchise can’t survive.

For now, though, the movie is in theaters and the franchise is in better shape than it’s been in decades. As Slater sees it, the secret was simple: actually talk to the people who made the thing.

The post Mortal Kombat 2 Writer Admits First Film’s Big Mistake appeared first on Cream.

• Writer Jeremy Slater says Cole Young’s death was driven by overwhelmingly negative fan reaction to the character after the first film
• Liu Kang’s surprise death was designed to shock hardcore fans who know him as the canonical tournament winner
• Tremor was nearly in the film before being swapped out for Sindel, who Slater says made the story “more visceral”
• Slater confirmed he has no plans to resurrect Goro, citing the challenges of CGI monster fights vs. human-on-human combat
• Mortal Kombat 2 opened to $63 million globally and holds an 89% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes

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.

The post Mortal Kombat 2 Writer Explains Why Cole Young Had to Die appeared first on Cream.

• Mortal Kombat II opened to $63 million globally in its first weekend, a series best but below studio expectations
• Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage and Adeline Rudolph’s Kitana are the standout new additions, with fan-favorite Cole Young killed off early
• Critics gave the film a 65% on Rotten Tomatoes, while fans pushed the audience score to 89%
• Producer Todd Garner publicly attacked critics before issuing an apology after backlash
• Screenwriter Jeremy Slater is already writing Mortal Kombat 3, with the ending setting up a trip to the Netherrealm

Mortal Kombat II finally gave fans what the first film promised and never delivered: an actual tournament. Five years after the 2021 reboot introduced audiences to a new universe — and one very divisive original character — director Simon McQuoid is back, screenwriter Jeremy Slater has stepped in fresh, and the result is a movie that knows exactly what it is and largely commits to it with both fists.

The film opened this past weekend to $40 million domestically and $23 million internationally, landing at $63 million globally against an $80 million production budget. It was beaten to the top spot by The Devil Wears Prada 2, which earned $43 million in its second weekend — with a Mother’s Day boost analysts say gave Miranda Priestly an unfair advantage over Shao Kahn. Still, by any franchise measure, it’s a win: the 2021 original grossed just $84.4 million in its entire theatrical run, and MK2 is already on pace to surpass that.

Karl Urban, Adeline Rudolph, and the Farewell Nobody Mourned

The biggest swing the film takes — and largely lands — is centering everything on Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) and Princess Kitana (Adeline Rudolph) while sidelining, and eventually killing, Cole Young (Lewis Tan). The original character created for the 2021 film was never embraced by game fans, and Slater made a conscious choice to give them the send-off they’d been demanding for years.

About halfway through the film, Cole steps up to face the hulking Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford) on the iconic Dead Pool stage. He almost wins. Then Kahn — newly made immortal via a stolen amulet and Raiden’s siphoned power — heals from a slit throat and smashes Cole’s head into something that can only be described as unforgettable. The movie doesn’t pause to mourn him for long. It moves on.

For Slater, that was entirely the point. “Cole Young is someone the hardcore fans did not respond to in the first movie,” he told Forbes in a recent interview. “They really felt like he didn’t necessarily belong. The fans were just sort of calling for his death for the last several years. And so, we knew getting rid of Cole would be satisfying for those hardcore fans and would be really, really shocking for the casual viewers who had only seen the first movie and had no idea that Cole wasn’t from the games.”

Lewis Tan, for what it’s worth, does everything he can with what little he’s given before his exit. But the film’s best moments belong to Urban, whose Cage is introduced sitting alone at a comic convention booth — zero fans, surrounded by unsold merch — before being dragged into the fate-of-the-world business he very much does not want. It’s a weathered, washed-up version of the character, and Slater says that was a deliberate choice. “Our Johnny is older, he’s weathered, he’s much less successful,” Slater explained. “He’s kind of the cocky Johnny Cage from the games if all of his dreams slipped through his fingers.”

Slater said he used the Cliff Booth archetype from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as a reference point while writing — not writing for Brad Pitt specifically, but keeping that energy of the tired, capable, quietly tragic badass in mind. Urban brings it, though some critics feel the script doesn’t always give him the sharpest lines to work with. His chemistry with Josh Lawson’s Kano — another returning fan favorite, brought back from the dead specifically for his comedic value — is one of the film’s consistent highlights.

Adeline Rudolph’s Kitana, meanwhile, is arguably the emotional backbone of the whole thing. Her backstory — a young princess who watches Shao Kahn destroy her father and is forced to become his warrior — is what grounds the film’s otherwise breakneck pacing. Tati Gabrielle appears as her guard and companion Jade, though neither character gets quite enough room to breathe beyond the ensemble.

The Fights Are the Point — and the Film Knows It

If the plot exists primarily to move characters from one fight to the next, that is not entirely a criticism. Slater’s stated mission from the moment he pitched the job was clear: “A Mortal Kombat movie should never be boring. It should never have any downtime. It should be a blast from start to finish.” Warner Bros. hired him about thirty minutes after that pitch, and the film largely delivers on that promise.

The fight choreography is a step up from the first film, and Slater credits that partly to the decision to lean into the cast’s real-world abilities. Ludi Lin, who plays Liu Kang, apparently showed up on set and asked if he could do a 540 kick instead of the scripted 180. “Everyone was kind of like, ‘Is that something a human being can actually do?'” Slater recalled. “And he’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, watch!’ And he just does a 540 kick in the air, because he’s insane.” The so-called Blue Portal fight has been cited across multiple reviews as the standout sequence of the entire film — precisely because it relies on two world-class martial artists and almost nothing else.

The film also leans into the franchise’s dark humor in ways the first film didn’t. Kano gets a scene with the villain Quan Chi that features what can only be described as a very creative Harry Potter insult. Johnny Cage clocks that the whole tournament sounds like a real-life Squid Game. And when tasked with destroying an immortality amulet, Cage makes a Lord of the Rings reference — which lands especially well given that Karl Urban himself played Éomer in Peter Jackson’s trilogy. The film’s opening sequence, a deliberately over-the-top ’90s-style kung-fu movie that established Cage’s faded stardom, sets the tone perfectly.

Kano and Cage share the comic relief load, and the film is better for it. Lawson’s Australian energy and Urban’s Kiwi humor make them the two characters you most want to spend time with, even when the script around them occasionally goes thin.

Also returning: Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim), Kung Lao (Max Huang), and Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), along with Jax Briggs (Mechad Brooks) and Raiden (Tadanobu Asano). Several of them — including Liu Kang and Jax — are killed during the tournament, a choice Slater said was about keeping stakes real and surprising both types of audience members. “Liu Kang canonically kills Shao Kahn. He’s the one who wins the tournament. They’re expecting him to ultimately be the victor,” Slater said. “So we knew that death would be really shocking for the hardcore fans.”

Mortal Kombat game creators Ed Boon and lead writer Dominic Cianciolo were involved throughout production — something Slater says was a conscious correction from the first film. “It’s so different to be able to go directly to the horse’s mouth, the guy who has been interacting with the fan base for 34 years,” he said. NetherRealm Studios’ fingerprints are visible in the fan-service moments that land hardest.

The Producer Drama Nobody Asked For

Before the opening weekend numbers were even in, producer Todd Garner took to Twitter to vent about the film’s early critical reception, which had settled around a 65-66% Rotten Tomatoes score. “Some of these reviews are cracking me up,” he wrote. “It’s clear they have never played the game and have no idea what the fans want or ANY of the rules/canon of Mortal Kombat. One reviewer was mad that a guy ‘had a laser eye!’ Why the f*** do we still allow people that don’t have any love for the genre review these movies! Baffling.”

The backlash was swift. Critics and industry observers pointed out that a film adaptation should be able to stand on its own without requiring homework, and that reviewers aren’t obligated to be franchise fans. Garner subsequently walked it back. “I realize that, in my eagerness to defend the people who worked so hard on this film, I lost sight of the fact that our job is to create the best possible movie — not only for the fans, but for anyone coming to the cinema. Once that movie is out in the world, no one is above criticism. For that, I apologize.”

The audience, for their part, didn’t need convincing. Fans pushed the Rotten Tomatoes audience score to 89%, with the consensus reading: “Karl Urban as Johnny Cage alone is worth the price of admission.” The film earned a B CinemaScore from opening-weekend audiences, and 75% of ticket buyers were male, according to PostTrak — a demographic split that was nearly the exact inverse of The Devil Wears Prada 2.

What Comes Next

The ending of MK2 is not subtle about its intentions. Johnny Cage and the surviving fighters head toward the Netherrealm to retrieve their fallen friends — Liu Kang, Jax, Cole Young, and others — setting up what Slater describes as, essentially, Mortal Kombat in Hell. He’s already writing the script for the third film, though he’s staying tight-lipped on specifics. “We’re really taking a look at what the fans are asking to see. Who are the characters they really love who still haven’t shown up? Who are the villains that haven’t gotten their time in the spotlight yet?”

One character who didn’t make the cut this time: Tremor, the earth-bending ninja. Slater tried several versions and couldn’t make it work, and says the experience taught him something about the franchise going forward. CGI-based powers are less satisfying than watching real athletes fight. “Characters like Tremor, where it was much more about, ‘I’m going to generate earthquakes and throw big rocks at you,’ is not as satisfying as watching two great fighters really go at it.”

There’s also the matter of timing. MK2 opened on Mother’s Day weekend, going head-to-head with The Devil Wears Prada 2 in its second week — a scheduling decision that, in hindsight, looks like it cost the film some box office runway. An October release has been floated as a smarter window for the third installment, giving it room to breathe against a less competitive field.

Streaming will matter too. The 2021 film became HBO Max’s most-watched original movie of that year, and a strong streaming run for MK2 could go a long way toward justifying the third film’s greenlight. New Line Cinema is already eyeing it, and Slater is already writing it. Whether the box office math adds up enough for Warner Bros. to fully commit is the real fight still unfolding.

Oh — and for anyone curious: almost none of the cast actually knows how to play the game. Karl Urban’s strategy is to find one move that works and spam it until his opponent figures out a countermeasure. Director Simon McQuoid says the stunt team destroys him every time and he’s stopped trying. Ludi Lin only played the Genesis version growing up and didn’t know there was a block button until recently. These are the people who just made the most successful Mortal Kombat movie ever produced. Finish him.

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• Mortal Kombat II is now in theaters, with Earthrealm winning the tournament after Kitana kills Shao Kahn
• Liu Kang, Jax, and Cole Young all die — but surviving heroes set off for Netherrealm to bring them back
• There is no post-credits scene; the third film is teased entirely through the story itself
• Writer Jeremy Slater is already working on Mortal Kombat III and says some deaths were planned as “the first part of a larger puzzle”
• The film holds a 73% on Rotten Tomatoes, with Josh Lawson’s Kano and Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage drawing the most praise from critics

Mortal Kombat II has finally arrived in theaters, and if you’ve just walked out of the arena and your brain is still processing what happened to Liu Kang — you’re not alone. The sequel to 2021’s pandemic-era surprise hit doesn’t do anything subtle with its ending. It kills off multiple major characters, sets the surviving heroes on a mission straight into hell, and leaves you with a very clear picture of where Mortal Kombat III is headed. No post-credits tease required.

Here’s everything that went down, with full context from the people who made it — and yes, major spoilers from this point forward.

How the Tournament Ends — and Who Doesn’t Make It Out

The film’s central conflict is the tournament itself, something the 2021 original notoriously failed to deliver on. This time, director Simon McQuoid and new screenwriter Jeremy Slater built the entire sequel around it: Earthrealm versus Outworld, with the fate of the planet on the line. Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford) needs ten consecutive victories to claim a realm as his own, and he’s already gobbled up every other corner of the universe.

Earthrealm’s champions — Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), Jax (Mehcad Brooks), Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), Cole Young (Lewis Tan), and newly recruited washed-up action star Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) — ultimately win. But the cost is brutal.

Cole Young has his skull crushed by Shao Kahn’s hammer (followed, because this is a Mortal Kombat movie, by an acid bath). Kung Lao, brought back as a revenant under Kahn’s control, dies again after an epic Blue Portal showdown with Liu Kang, who drags his former friend onto his own spinning hat. Jax is impaled on the pointy end of Kahn’s war-hammer. And then Liu Kang himself goes out the same way — but upon death, the powerful Shaolin warrior ascends to Fire God status, promising to bring Kung Lao’s spirit back from the Netherrealm as flames consume him.

The final battle comes down to Shao Kahn versus Sonya Blade, who is defeated but not killed. She manages to free Kitana (Adeline Rudolph), who had been imprisoned after Kahn discovered her betrayal. Kano, Scorpion, and a newly powered-up Johnny Cage — who finally accepts his destiny and unlocks his abilities — destroy the amulet held by Bi-Han (Joe Taslim), also known as Noob Saibot, which had been giving Kahn his immortality. Cage delivers the final blow with a Shadow Kick. Kitana finishes the man who murdered her father by slicing through his head with her bladed fans.

With Kitana now serving as queen of Edenia, the surviving heroes — Sonya, Johnny Cage, Baraka, Kano, and Raiden — set off for Netherrealm with a captive Quan Chi, determined to resurrect their fallen friends. And yes, the movie leaves open the possibility that even Cole Young might be coming back. Maybe.

One thing you won’t find: a post-credits scene. Instead, the film closes with a credits sequence set to the classic “Techno Syndrome” by Belgian duo The Immortals — the iconic tune from the original 1995 film that fans have been waiting to hear again.

What Jeremy Slater Is Saying About Mortal Kombat III

Slater, who also created the underrated Exorcist TV series and wrote Marvel’s Moon Knight, came to this project with no involvement in the first film — a fresh set of eyes that proved deliberate. He’s already deep into writing the third installment, and in a conversation with io9, he was candid about what those deaths actually mean for the franchise’s future.

“It’s sort of baked into the DNA of Mortal Kombat as a franchise,” Slater explained. “If you know how to do the fatalities, every one of these matches ends with one of your favorite characters getting his spine ripped out or his skull smashed or something like that. And then the next time you put in a quarter, they’re all alive again.”

He was also refreshingly honest about his own motivations. “I’m as guilty of that as anybody because I was like, ‘I’m not going to write this movie unless you let me bring Kano back.’ Josh Lawson was my favorite thing about the first movie, hands down.”

But Slater is careful to say that death still carries weight within the story, even if the franchise’s DNA provides a get-out-of-jail-free card. “For the characters, death is still real. It still matters. And so you have to approach it and treat it with severity. When characters die in this movie, it’s painful for the survivors, and we want it to be shocking for the audience. We want it to be a little bit of a gut punch.”

Then came the tease. “Some of these characters and actors, we have big plans for them in the future, and just because some of them met a bad ending in this movie, it doesn’t mean that’s the last time you’re going to see them in a Mortal Kombat… Some of those deaths were because we do have bigger plans for some of those characters down the road, and that their deaths in this movie is the first part of a larger puzzle.”

He didn’t name names, but Liu Kang is the obvious read. His death is the most emotionally loaded moment in the film, and it’s directly tied to the mechanics of how Kung Lao can be saved. The Netherrealm mission in part three seems to orbit entirely around him — an Orpheus-in-hell structure that would be genuinely mythological territory for a franchise that has mostly stayed closer to the arcade.

Slater also confirmed he’s paying attention to how audiences are responding now that the film is out. “For a very long time, I’ve been writing and developing Mortal Kombat III sort of in a vacuum. And now that fans are seeing [part two] and responding to it, we can see tonally what’s working. We can see, in terms of the characters, who are they responding to, who are they going to want to see more of in a part three,” he said. “In the same way that we took the lessons from one to make two even better, I want to take the lessons from two and make three the best one yet.”

The Cole Young Question

Cole Young’s death — skull crushed, acid bath, done — reads like more than just a plot beat. It feels like an acknowledgment. The character, invented for the 2021 film and not from the games at all, was deeply divisive with the fan base, who took issue with him being the POV hero over beloved canonical characters. His exit in the sequel is so gruesome, and so early, that it landed more like a wink to the audience than a genuine narrative gut punch.

Director Simon McQuoid addressed the situation directly in an interview with LA Weekly, separating the character from the actor. “I would work with Lewis [Tan] again in a heartbeat,” McQuoid said. “It was just unfortunate that he was the guy who was portraying this new character.” He added that conversations about Cole’s future are ongoing, saying: “Lewis is not wrong” when it comes to teasing future plans, but that it’s “way too early to sort of divulge anything.”

The fan consensus seems to be exactly what McQuoid described: everyone likes Lewis Tan. Nobody embraced Cole Young. Whether a Netherrealm resurrection can change that math is a question for part three.

What the Critics Are Saying

Mortal Kombat II is sitting at 73% on Rotten Tomatoes, making it one of the highest-rated video game movies ever made — behind only Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and the micro-budget Werewolves Within. The reviews, predictably, are split along a pretty clear fault line: fans of the games are having a blast, and critics without that context are bouncing off the lore.

That divide became briefly dramatic when producer Todd Garner took to X/Twitter to call out reviews he felt were unfair, saying some critics clearly had “no idea what the fans want or ANY of the rules / canon of Mortal Kombat.” His sharpest example: “One reviewer was mad that a guy ‘had a laser eye!'” — a reference to Kano’s signature ability, which has been part of the character since 1992. Garner later clarified that his frustration was specifically directed at reviewers who objected to foundational elements of the IP itself, saying those critics were “dead in the water going in.” Not everyone agreed — critic Griffin Schiller pushed back publicly, arguing that “films should be reviewed on how they function as films, not as a piece of fan service.”

Garner also got some blowback from the Mortal Kombat fan community itself, who reminded him that the first film invented Cole Young and the concept of Arcana — neither of which came from the games. His response to that particular criticism? “Fair.”

Among the reviews themselves, the throughline is consistent: Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage and Josh Lawson’s returning Kano are the film’s biggest assets. IGN gave it an 8 out of 10, calling it a big win and noting that between Kano and Cage, “the pop culture wisecracks flow” in this adaptation of “colorful weirdos beating the s#!t out of each other.” Collider rated it 7 out of 10, calling it a “bloody good time” and suggesting Lawson’s Kano should be considered the definitive version of the character. Empire gave it 3 out of 5, acknowledging shallow characters but calling it “a lot of dumb fun.”

On the other end, the Chicago Tribune’s Katie Walsh gave it 1.5 out of 4 stars, calling it “astonishingly stiff” and arguing it lacks the cheesy charm of the original. Mashable’s Kristy Puchko called it an “ugly, nonsensical mess” — though even she gave Kano credit as the only character who refuses to take any of it seriously.

The Houston Chronicle offered perhaps the most accurate summary of the experience for general audiences: it “starts out dumb but gradually becomes kind of awesome — and a little bit smarter,” with fight choreography that grows increasingly impressive as the film finds its footing.

How They Fixed What the First Film Got Wrong

Slater came into this project with a specific mandate: figure out what the first film did right, double down on it, and quietly fix everything else. The 2021 original had to prove that an R-rated martial arts fantasy movie could find an audience — and it did, mostly on streaming, where it put up massive numbers despite a limited theatrical release during the pandemic. But the fan base was vocal about what didn’t work: the invented concept of Arcana, the absence of an actual tournament, and the prominence of Cole Young over characters people had been playing for decades.

“We’re very careful in the movie to never contradict the idea of arcana,” Slater told io9. “But that word is also never mentioned in the movie very deliberately.” He compared it to midichlorians in Star Wars — sometimes you don’t need to explain the mechanism. You just need to enjoy the result.

He also made a point of bringing Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon into the process far more meaningfully than the first film did. Rather than Googling iconic stages or fan-requested fatalities, Slater could go directly to the source. “He can say, ‘Yeah, they’ve been begging for this for 30 years,'” Slater said. Boon even appears in the film as a bartender — a cameo that, according to McQuoid, drew audible cheers from the preview audience. The director told LA Weekly he’d happily have Boon pop up in every future installment, Stan Lee-style.

The decision to delay the film from October 2025 to May 2026 also paid off. Slater was initially disappointed — “This is a summer movie,” he said — but acknowledged that the extra time allowed the visual effects, particularly the Netherrealm sequences, to be finished properly. “You look at those Netherrealm sequences, and they look so much cooler than they did a year ago.”

Now, with the movie in theaters and fan response rolling in, Slater says he finally has the data he needs to shape part three. “I want to take the lessons from two and make three the best one yet,” he said. “That is the ultimate goal.”

The surviving heroes are headed to Netherrealm. Liu Kang is waiting. And if Slater gets his way, the best Mortal Kombat movie is still to come.

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