'Mortal Kombat': Another New Movie Revealed

On Saturday, the Mortal Kombat franchise announced another new movie during a panel at New York Comic Con. Fans attending a panel about the upcoming Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind were treated to the surprise announcement of Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match. According to a report by IGN, the movie will even include Joel McHale reprising his roel as the voice of Johnny Cage.

Cage Match will be the fourth movie in the burgeoning Mortal Kombat animated franchise. McHale played Cage in Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge in 2020 – the first movie in the film. He returned for Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms the following year, but is not in Snow Blind, which premiered on Saturday. The announcement of his return drew cheers from the comic con audience, especially as a sign that this animated movie series is not slowing down or fizzling out.

Saturday, Oct. 8 was also the 30th anniversary of the Mortal Kombat franchise as a whole, so it was an auspicious time overall. While the first two movies focused on Johnny Cage, Snow Blind centers around Kenshi (Manny Jacinto) and Kuai Liang (Ron Yuan) trying to fight off Kano (David Wenham), who is on a "brutal journey to take over Earthrealm." Even before it premiered, many fans praised it for switching up the ensemble cast and putting the emphasis on Kenshi, though some couldn't help but wonder if it was a bad sign for the series as a whole.

The Mortal Kombat franchise has been riding high in the last few years with more plot-heavy media — like movies — than ever before. After Scorpion's Revenge, Warner Bros. Pictures released the live-action movie in April of 2021. It stars Lewis Tan, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Tadanobu Asano, Mehcad Brooks, Ludi Lin, Chin Han, Max Huang, Joe Taslim and Hiroyuki Sanada. It was successful enough to warrant a screenplay, which was ordered in January 2022.

Details on that project are still scarce, but it was confirmed that Jeremy Slater will write the screenplay, and it will probably be directed by Simon McQuoid. There has been some talk of pulling McHale from the animated franchise into the live-action movies to play Cage there as well, but so far that is just an idea from interviews and fan forums.

The live-action movie and the first two animated movies are streaming now on HBO Max. Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind is available to stream on-demand or on DVD and Blu-ray. Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match is due out sometime in 2023.