The longer we go without hearing any news on a Mortal Kombat sequel, the more anxious fans will start to become. Having been described by Warner Bros. as a top asset, opened at the top of the domestic box office with a decent haul by the standards of the pandemic era and then gone on to recoup the $55 million budget and then some by the time it left theaters, the video game adaptation is nothing if not a success.
Not only that, but it was named by many folks as the best console-to-screen translation ever, and while many critics disagreed, a 55% Rotten Tomatoes score is solid for a genre that’s been batting away accusations of being cursed for almost 30 years. Mortal Kombat has even outstripped big budget superhero blockbusters The Suicide Squad, Zack Snyder’s Justice League and Wonder Woman 1984 in terms of HBO Max viewership, so it’s been good news on almost every front.
That makes the lack of sequel talk all the more surprising, but we’re now hearing from our sources – the same ones who told us Jared Leto’s Joker was getting a brand new look in the Snyder Cut long before it was confirmed – that the holdup may reportedly be down to internal discussions over sending the next chapter in the Mortal Kombat franchise straight to HBO Max.
Mortal Kombat will presumably occupy the same sort of budgetary ballpark as fellow streaming exclusives Black Canary, Batgirl and Blue Beetle, but the Scarlett Johansson lawsuit could potentially present a sizeable obstacle. After all, the majority of cast members signed multi-picture deals so they’re definitely under contract, but the small print likely wouldn’t have covered HBO Max exclusive sequels.
