Not much at present is known about director Simon McQuoid’s upcoming Mortal Kombat 2. The sequel to the 2021 film began development in earnest back in January when Moon Knight head writer Jeremy Slater came aboard to write the screenplay, and McQuoid signed his deal to return to the helm in July, but nothing has been revealed about the plot. Surely details will arrive as the project moves closer to production, but for now, fans can get hyped learning that the new movie is going to be “way bigger” than its predecessor.
Mortal Kombat star Lewis Tan recently spoke with ComicBook about the development of the upcoming, untitled sequel, and he confirmed that the studio executives behind the movie are happy about the performance of the first film – which was given a hybrid streaming/theatrical release in the early months of 2021 when multiplexes around the world were starting to reopen. While discussing the video game blockbuster’s reception, he added that big things are in store with Mortal Kombat 2. Said Tan,
[The studio is] very happy with the movie, and obviously, it performed really well. It’s one of the most-viewed films of their Warner Bros. slate, even though it came out at the worst time ever possible. But no, we’re full steam ahead. And now, we have [Mortal Kombat co-creator] Ed Boon with us as well, so we got the stamp of approval from the legend himself. Number two is just going to be absolutely insane. Way bigger.
“Bigger” is an interesting word to use in the context of Mortal Kombat given that this isn’t exactly a franchise that is known for scale; it’s known for violent warriors squaring off in fights to the death as part of a tournament. It’s possible that Lewis Tan is teasing that Mortal Kombat 2 will go further in exploring Outworld and be “bigger” in that way, but I’m personally hoping that he’s referring to the film having an outsized ensemble of fan favorite characters appearing and the movie going “way bigger” with fatalities (and possibly Animalities, and Babalities, etc.)
One of the frustrating things about the developing project is that we have no idea who we can expect to be in it. Obviously the script is bringing back Lewis Tan’s Cole Young, and it would make sense to see Tadanobu Asano’s Raiden, Jessica McNamee’s Sonya Blade and Mehcad Brooks’ Jax again, but who else? Hiroyuki Sanada has said that he has not heard anything about coming back as Hanzo Hasashi a.k.a. Scorpion, and Jeremy Slater has said that it’s “up in the air” how much Johnny Cage we’ll see (despite the tease at the end of 2021’s Mortal Kombat).
In the previous movie, characters including Sub-Zero, Nitara, Reptile, Kabal, Reiko, Kung Lao, Kano and Goro are killed… but we don’t even know at this point if they will stay dead in the follow-up story. Furthermore, fans are still waiting to see other fighters enter the canon, including Baraka, Jade, Smoke, Chameleon, Motaro, Sektor, Sheeva, Sindel, and many more.
Mortal Kombat 2 is in active development, but because it doesn’t have a release date, we don’t presently know how long the wait for the film is going to be. In the meantime, you can always rewatch Simon McQuoid’s Mortal Kombat, which you could be checking out right now with an HBO Max subscription.