In April 2021, Mortal Kombat was once again given the cinematic treatment following the two instances in the ‘90s, with the reboot simultaneously released in theaters and to Max subscribers. By January 2022, Warner Bros. Pictures officially gteenlist Mortal Kombat 2, and the last several months have brought a handful of major casting news for the sequel. Well, today brings a doozy of an update on that front, as not only have Shao Kahn and some other new characters been cast, it’s also been revealed that many familiar faces from the first movie will be back.
Let’s start off with the newcomers first. Martin Ford, a bodybuilder who’s appeared in movies like The Machine and F9, and will also be present in the upcoming Red Sonja reboot, has been selected to play Shao Kahn, who’s one of the Mortal Kombat franchise’s main villains. So having sat out the events of the first movie, it’s hardly surprising he’ll finally enter the picture in this next installment. Ford will be joined by Desmond Chiam as King Jerrod, Ana Thu Nguyen as Sindel and Damon Herriman as Quan Chi.
As for the familiar faces, THR shared in its report that the following people will be back for Mortal Kombat 2: Lewis Tan as Cole Young, Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade, Josh Lawson as Kano, Tadanobu Asano as Lord Raiden, Mehcad Brooks as Jax, Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Chin Han as Shang Tsung, Joe Taslim as Bi-Han and Sub-Zero, Hiroyuki Sanada as Hanzo Hasashi and Scorpion, and Max Huang as Kung Lao. Kano and Sub-Zero’s inclusion are especially notable considering they were both killed in the first movie, but then again, resurrection is built into Mortal Kombat’s framework, so it should be easy enough to bring these two back to life. And, of course, we shouldn’t be shocked by Cole returning since he’s essentially the main protagonist for this take on the mythology.
All this new casting information follows behind the additions of Karl Urban as Johnny Cage, Tati Gabrielle as Jade and Adeline Rudolph as Kitana. It’s important to note that Kitana is the daughter of Jerrod and Sindel, although given what happens to the former in the Mortal Kombat video games, we may only see a younger version of Kitana with him in Mortal Kombat 2 rather than Rudolph share screen time with Chiam. As for Quan Chi, he’s also quite the prominent Mortal Kombat antagonist, but whether he’ll be allied with Shao Kahn or pursing his own agenda remains to be seen. Behind the scenes, Simon McQuoid is once again directing, and Moon Knight’s Jeremy Slater is writing the script.
Per producer Todd Garner, Mortal Kombat 2 has either begun production, or will do so soon, in Australia, but the sequel doesn’t have a release date slotted yet. Stay tuned for more updates on how the project’s coming along, and look over the 2023 movie release schedule to get the lay of this year’s cinematic land.
