Fans were unsure what to expect with the most recent live-action Mortal Kombat film. After all, there have been a number of live-action adaptations in the past, and all of which were produced with varying degrees of quality. But the most recent film actually turned out to be quite a success. Now it looks like New Line Cinema is bringing back that film’s director, Simon McQuoid, to direct Mortal Kombat 2.
This is an exciting announcement, as revealed via Deadline, for a number of reasons. First of all, the film was very successful as mentioned above, and it’s easy to see that McQuoid was behind much of that. Furthermore, that first film was only his directorial debut, so seeing him step things up with a continuation will no doubt be a treat for fans.
As they’ve stated:
“After the most recent Mortal Kombat pic overachieved at box office, New Line is ready to get back in to the arena on a sequel. Sources tell Deadline that Simon McQuoid is set to return as director for the follow-up to the 2021 action-adventure hit.”
Fans will remember that the 2021 film was released during the Coronavirus pandemic. And, much like Godzilla vs. Kong, it was one of the Warner Bros films that helped interest audiences in revisiting theaters. Furthermore, both films had surprising results at the box office. While it’s already one thing to earn a decent sum of cash – these films did so while also being released on HBO Max at the same time. As such, it makes sense why Warner Bros is eager to have sequels to both properties in the works.
With Simon McQuoid returning to direct the Mortal Kombat sequel, Jeremy Slater is currently writing the screenplay for the new film. The original video games that the films are based on were created by Ed Boon and John Tobias. Fans can stay tuned to ScreenGeek for additional updates on this sequel as we have them. Now that the sequel has been confirmed with McQuoid back in the director’s chair – it shouldn’t be much longer before production begins moving ahead.