Mortal Kombat Director Simon McQuoid Will Return For The Sequel
Remember "Mortal Kombat?" Not the game, but the blockbuster movie starring a very hot Lewis Tan? The James Wan-produced film, co-written by the co-writer of the upcoming "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," managed to remove the bad taste from the 1995 "Mortal Kombat" out of many viewers' mouths with a blend of over-the-top violence and comedy.
The film adapted the hugely popular video game franchise of the same name, and boiled down a surprisingly deep lore to a rather boilerplate origin story for a new character named Cole Young, a washed-up MMA fighter who is being hunted by an assassin named Sub-Zero. Young is forced to seek out the greatest champions on Earth to participate in an interdimensional tournament with the fate of the universe at stake. "Mortal Kombat" was released at the very start of lockdown, becoming one of the first films to get a simultaneous hybrid release in both theaters and on HBO Max. Though it did well enough, it also barely defeated anime sensation "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba -– The Movie: Mugen Train" at the box office on its opening weekend, eventually dropping behind it in its second.
For better or worse, it seems New Line Cinema liked what filmmaker Simon McQuoid brought to "Mortal Kombat" — so much, in fact, that they just told him "get over here" to make a sequel, as Deadline reports McQuoid is set to return as director for the next "Mortal Kombat."
More fatalities incoming
"Mortal Kombat" was McQuoid's feature directorial debut; he previously directed commercials for Xbox and PlayStation games like "Halo 3" and "Call of Duty." We also know that the script for "Mortal Kombat 2" will be penned by Jeremy Slater, who previously created the phenomenal and criminally underseen "The Exorcist" TV show, as well as writing this year's fantastic "Moon Knight."
Earlier this year, Slater teased that fan-favorite character Johnny Cage is "definitely" appearing in the sequel after being teased in the 2021 movie. Slater has proven to be adept at telling stories that explore darkness and horrors in ways that can be scary, but also just moody enough to give some extra oomph to an action/adventure story. If "Moon Knight" is anything to go by, we can still get all the horror elements of the games, but with a story properly driven by action, so let's hope the sequel will finally skip the boring origin story stuff and actually get to that tournament we were promised.
"Mortal Kombat 2" does not have a release date, but the first "Mortal Kombat" is streaming on HBO Max.