‘Mortal Kombat II’ Scribe Already Hard at Work on a Script for Part 3
Mortal Kombat II is in theaters now from Warner Bros., and at first glance, it seems to be a knockout punch for the studio. We reported earlier this morning that the sequel has already pulled in over $63 million worldwide. It still has a bit to go before it tops the reported budget of $80 million, but the film is well on its way. If it does well enough, that could mean another sequel. And that’s something scribe Jeremy Slater (Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire) is already hard at work on.
While speaking with THR, Slater spoke about the potential for a third film, though one is not yet green-lit. “Yeah, we are not green-lit for a third movie yet,” said Slater. “When the initial test screening numbers came back last year and the studio saw how fans were responding to II, I think they realized that there’s a potential here for this to be an ongoing franchise. So they commissioned me to start working on a script for III, and I’m finishing a second draft right now.“
Continued Slater, “I’m very, very happy with it. In the same way that we took lessons from the first one and tried to make II a much better movie, we’re now taking the lessons from II. We’re taking some of the fan reactions from early screenings to make III even bigger and even more satisfying. We want to continue to raise the bar for ourselves along the way.“
While I didn’t personally love Mortal Kombat II (read my review), I do agree that Slater did a good job of raising the bar with his script. That has me hopeful that a third movie would deliver even more gruesome fatalities and thrilling action.
Added Slater, “As much as it hurts to say goodbye to some of these characters, the great thing about Mortal Kombat as a franchise is that death is never final, as we see in this movie. We have big plans for some of the [deceased] characters and some of their actors if we are lucky enough to do a Mortal Kombat III, IV, V or however long we can take this. The goal would certainly be to use what happens to some of these characters in this movie as a jumping-off point to tell larger stories and maybe do some course corrections.“
That should be great news to fans of these news films and the franchise at large. For their sake, let’s hope Mortal Kombat II continues to be a box office smash.
Mortal Kombat II follows “the fan favorite champions — now joined by Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) — as they are pitted against one another in the ultimate battle to defeat the dark rule of Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford) that threatens the very existence of the Earthrealm and its defenders.”
Simon McQuoid returns to direct.
The film also stars Ludi Lin, Jessica McNamee, Joe Taslim, Hiroyuki Sanada, Adeline Rudolph, Tati Gabrielle, Josh Lawson, Tadanobu Asano, and CJ Bloomfield.
Mortal Kombat II is now playing in theaters via Warner Bros.
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