Ever since the Mortal Kombat reboot was released at the end of April, fans have been waiting on tenterhooks to discover what the future holds for the fantasy martial arts action franchise. $83 million at the box office on a $55 million budget isn’t a spectacular return, but a lot more theaters were closed when Simon McQuoid’s feature length directorial debut hit theaters.
Although concrete data has never been made available, third-party aggregators claimed the video game adaptation was a massive success on HBO Max that even comfortably outstripped James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad in terms of viewership, while a WarnerMedia exec describing Mortal Kombat as a “top asset” was also a hugely encouraging sign.
One worrying point is that Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds confirmed Disney had been in touch regarding sequels to Jungle Cruise and Free Guy less than a week after they premiered, but it’s been four months and counting without a peep on how Warner Bros. are planning to continue the Mortal Kombat mythology.
However, we’re now hearing from our sources – the same ones who told us Ben Affleck was returning as Batman in The Flash long before it was confirmed – that some big news on the future of the Mortal Kombat universe isn’t too far away, although specifics remain thin on the ground beyond that.
It could be a feature length sequel, HBO Max episodic spinoffs, the announcement of an entire shared universe or something else entirely, but fans won’t care as long as they get nailed-down confirmation that we haven’t seen the last of the R-rated Mortal Kombat that was lauded by many as the best video game movie ever.