In good news not just for Warner Bros. but the theatrical industry in general, Mortal Kombat topped the domestic box office this weekend with a healthy $22 million debut. When you factor in the animated Demon Slayer The Movie: Mugen Train also hauling in over $19 million, it delivered the highest-earning frame of the COVID-19 era by far. Not only that, but it means the three biggest weekend openers since March of last year have all arrived in the last four weeks, signalling that business is about to pick up.
Simon McQuoid’s martial arts actioner has already pulled in over $50 million globally, meaning that Mortal Kombat is set to begin turning a profit over the next few days. Reviews may have been mixed across the board, but fans of the video game series have clearly been showing up in their droves to see it on the biggest screen possible, while many have been touting it as the single greatest console-to-screen translation ever.
Naturally, that means sequel talk has already started, and it’s not as if Mortal Kombat didn’t leave the door open for further adventures. In a new interview, McQuoid touched on the possibility and said that any follow-ups will ultimately be decided by the fans, given that they possess the power to drive the film to the sort of box office heights that’ll please the decision makers in the studio boardroom.
“Sequels are a bit tricky because you can’t totally ignore them, because that wouldn’t be a smart move, but none of us used the s-word. We’d never talk about it in any depth whatsoever because we feel like we have to put all our energy into this film. That being said, if the fans want another one, that’s not for us to decide; that’s for the fans to decide. Then, we need a couple of joiner pieces that we know can lead us somewhere because there’s a treasure trove of stuff that’s just sitting there.”
Of course, it sounds a little disingenuous for McQuoid to say that he and his team tried to avoid the word ‘sequel’ entirely when the final scene of Mortal Kombat is literally nothing but pure sequel bait that teases what’s coming next, but at least it looks as though we’ll be getting to see a second installment, so it won’t all be for nought.
