New Line demands Moon Knight writer “get over here” and pen Mortal Kombat 2
Note to Jeremy Slater: Include an actual Mortal Kombat tournament this time
Aux News Mortal Kombat
Not content with reviving the beloved live-action adaptations of Mortal Kombat and turning it into one of HBO Max’s few success stories, New Line is getting the ball rolling on Mortal Kombat 2 (which will be titled “More-tal Kombat” if there’s any justice in the world).
Per Deadline, the studio tapped Moon Knight writer Jeremy Slater to pen the sequel—though there’s no word as to whether there will be an actual “Mortal Kombat” tournament in this one. Though we have to assume that many, many more writing credits will adorn the opening titles by the time the movie arrives.
While the first Mortal Kombat over-performed and “did numbers” on HBO, some critics and fans were a little disappointed by the lack of Mortal Kombat in Mortal Kombat. Moreover, the Mortal Kombat movies have only gone the sequel route once, and, well, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation isn’t exactly a fan favorite.
The new movie wasn’t a favorite here at The A.V. Club. Reviewer Ignatiy Vishnevetsky delivered a brutal fatality:
There is, technically speaking, no Mortal Kombat in Mortal Kombat. (They’re saving it for the sequel.) There are, however, some unremarkably choreographed fights with sporadic VFX gore and digital blood spatter. Whatever happened to the gnarly prosthetic? The fire-hose-strength arterial spray of bright, bright red? Digital effects haven’t made movies any cheaper, but they’ve definitely made them less interesting to look at.
There have been so many cracks at live-action Mortal Kombat over the last 20 years, including the much-hyped web series Mortal Kombat: Legacy. It’s even harder to fathom anything getting better than the Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins, a one-two punch of cheap 2-D animation and state-of-the-art ugly 3-D animation. Maybe the new movie will go in that direction. Seems better than the soulless CGI we’ve been treated to recently. At the very least, it’s more entertaining.
Who knows, maybe the buzz around the Moon Knight script is strong enough to give us some hope for a decent sequel. Perhaps we’ll even get one with a few more “Friendship” finishers.
24 Comments
Disappointing is being kind…I thought the MK movie was mostly terrible.It sucks that Kevin Tancharoen never got a MK movie off the ground. Rebirth and Legacy were solid.
Was there definitely no Mortal Kombat in Mortal Kombat (2021)? It seemed weirdly ambiguous to me.I kind of liked it. It differed from the 1995 film in a way that kind of complimented it. 95 film is definitely more fun though. I liked that they at least didn’t hold back on too many characters as sequel bait like e.g. the latest G.I. Joe; I mean MK Origins: Sub-Zero and Scorpion might have been better, but MK Origins: Liu Kang or whomever, not so much.
Well, there was no tournament. It was all about the bad guys killing the good guys before the tournament was to start, so the bad guys would win by default.Which as far as bad guys go, it isn’t that bad of a plan, really, to find a loophole in some weird “have a tournament to decide who controls the universe” kind of thing.
i liked the reboot and kind of admired how they held off going to the tournament.it’s not necessarily what i would do with a mortal kombat movie but i thought it was made competently and with love. and it was a great set up for a mortal kombat 2 that might really kick ass (with double the budget).
Awesome, had a lot of fun with the first one and ready for more. Most of the Mortal Kombat games don’t even have a tournament.
I watched it on an airplane, it was perfectly cromulent for that situation.
It screams “airplane movie” to me.
Surely you can’t be serious!(with all apologies to Ted Striker)
So you’re saying it’s not worth seeing on an embiggened screen?
Me too! They dubbed over all the swear words (“Mothersucker!”) yet left in all the gore, so who knows who the edit was supposed to be aimed at.
What airline? United leaves the swears in now.
This was on an Avianca flight. Weirdly, they had other sweary films that hadn’t been redubbed.
I can’t really figure this guy out. He, like, kind of did some stuff before Moon Knight, according to his Wiki. Co-wrote, co-wrote, creator/wrote four episodes.
Mortal Kombat Legends Scorpion’s Revenge was great. Far better than the live action reboot.
I love that film, Joel McHale makes such a great Johnny Cage.“HEEEERRRE’S JOHNNY!’
Mind you, that movie also has problems of its own.
I was more bothered by the main character being super boring and having a weird ambiguous power than by the fact that there wasn’t a tournament. The whole time I thought he was going to “inherit” the Scorpion persona, but no, just weird armor guy.They should have just had him be Johnny Cage.Kano was awesome though.
Kano was amazing! And the only actor who seemed to understand what the movie should have been like.
Jax’s power was that he got bigger robot arms than the monks gave him.
Why couldn’t he just have no arms at first, and have an awesome legs-only fight before he gets them?
I’d honestly rather they just reboot it again. MK 2021 was really not that good. It had potential and there were decent moments but the changes they made were pointless and stupid. Sure it was a step up from Annihilation but MK 95 was a far better film.
The only thing I can remember about the last MK movie was that it didn’t have Johhny Cage.
The only thing I can remember is that the first 5-7 minutes were great
The Pitch Meeting for the MK reboot made a very good point that’s yet to be refuted:“So like if a 95 year old senile grandpa accidentally runs over a champion he will then have to fight to defend the earth realm?”“Yeah, I guess so.”“Well, let me ask you something: Can we make that movie instead?”