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
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.