I did not realize this happened all the way back in October of 2025, but Warner Bros. was so confident in both Mortal Kombat 2 and the game adaptation’s potential as an ongoing franchise that it greenlit Mortal Kombat 3. That was about seven months before Mortal Kombat 2 came to theaters, and it appears its confidence was well placed.
Mortal Kombat 2 is on its way to outperforming the total gross of the first film, earning $60 million globally in just a week, compared to the $84 million lifetime gross of the first one. And now, things are in motion for a sequel, and writer Jeremy Slater is already talking about major plot points. Spoilers for the second film follow.
In a new interview with Variety, he’s talking about how one fan-favorite character, Liu Kang, will return after his apparent death:
“We always had planned to kill him in this movie, but Ludi Lin is so goddamned good. We didn’t expect how much even the casual audience would fall in love with Liu Kang. We always knew that we would be bringing Liu Kang back in some regard in the third movie. But we did wind up altering his death a little bit to make it more of a choice. So we’re not sure if he actually died or did he ascend to some other plane? What actually happened to hit to him in that moment is absolutely a mystery that’s going to be explored in “Mortal Kombat III.”
The “other plane” bit seems to be the idea that we will see Liu Kang in full fire god mode if they’re following the lore, as Variety had asked that directly. One other death that Slater addressed was how Lewis Tan’s Cole Young, the “original” character who led the first film, was killed off right away. He says the character was a studio mandate for the first film as a POV character, but it didn’t fit with the universe. That said, he noted that he liked Lewis Tan so much as an actor and fighter that he may figure out a way to bring him back, not Cole Young, into the franchise somehow, potentially in the third film.
Slater also addressed a constant Mortal Kombat plot point, namely alternate worlds and timelines:
“I think we would certainly want to steer clear of doing any sort of major timeline reboots or resets, especially because what we’re learning right now is people like these characters and tone. Doing a board wipe and starting from scratch with new versions may be a bridge too far. Some of that stuff feels like fertile ground to explore, but maybe not right off the bat.”
Ultimately, he says his goal is to make this New Line’s own version of The Fast and the Furious with a main film line, but also spinoffs with side characters. WB, which owns the franchise, has listed Mortal Kombat in the past alongside some of its biggest assets like DC, Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, so we’ll see just how much they invest in its future from here.
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