Mortal Kombat 2 Writer Teases New Characters

Mortal Kombat 2 –– the sequel to 2021’s popular Mortal Kombat movie — is being penned by Jeremy Slater, best known as the head writer and executive producer for Moon Knight on Disney+. Slater was not involved with the first movie, but as you would expect, he’s a big Mortal Kombat fan. Here at Comicbook.com, we recently got the chance to chat with Slater, who, in addition to confirming Johnny Cage is in the sequel, teased some other new characters.

When asked how much freedom Slater has been given to add new characters, the writer reveals everyone has been flexible, however, adding new characters is a delicate balance given all of the returning characters from the first movie, which already had a pretty large cast. To this end, Slater suggests fans shouldn’t expect a cameo parade.

“They’re really flexible because a lot of it is just who do we want to see, and a lot of it is who have the fans been really clamoring for because, I’m sure you know, Mortal Kombat has an incredibly passionate and incredibly vocal fan base on social media,” said Slater. “And there are people they really want to see in these movies and relationships they really want to see, and part of the problem is we’ve got a lot of returning characters from that first movie that you already have to balance. So if the last movie introduced 10 characters, we can’t necessarily turn around and introduce another 10 characters because then you’re dealing with 20 people in a movie and it becomes a sort of cameo parade. So you really have to go through and kind of cherry-pick, who are your three or four favorite heroes we can add, who are your three or four favorite villains? 

Slater continued, dropping some specific names like Kitana and Erron Black, though he didn’t go as far to confirm these characters. 

“How do we introduce some of these great characters but use them in a way that feels satisfying and doesn’t feel… You don’t want Erron Black to just kind of walk by in the background and everyone goes like, ‘Yeah, that was him.’ If you’re using that character or you’re using Johnny Cage or Kitana or D’Vorah, or any of these characters from the games, you want to make sure that you have a story to tell. And we have to figure out a way to do it in under two hours, and we have to figure out a way that it all makes sense to people who have only seen the first movie and are unfamiliar with the lore in the games and we have to get as close to that lore as we can, because the fans, that’s what they want to see.”

Slater concluded by noting that the focus isn’t just incorporating fan-favorite characters, but making sure they are well-realized, which ties back into his previous point about the sequel not being a cameo parade.

“So it’s very much a balancing act of there are certainly going to be people who are like, ‘My favorite character wasn’t included this time around just because they have 50 characters at this point. And we can’t have them all on screen.’ But I think out of the characters you do see, I think fans are really going to be happy with the interpretations,” said Slater. “We’re trying really hard to make them as cool and as memorable and as fun as possible.”

Mortal Kombat 2 is currently in some form of pre-production, with no word of when filming will begin, let alone when it will release.