Critics and audiences are in agreement that Mortal Kombat 2, which has just hit theatres, is a huge improvement on the first film, and that might be because the developers of the Mortal Kombat game franchise were more involved this time around.
In an interview with Forbes, writer Jeremy Slater, who was brought on board for the sequel, said, "One of the mistakes we wanted to rectify from that first movie was not having NetherRealm Studios as creatively involved as they could have been." So, for round 2, the team made sure that the creators were "involved every step of the way."
Despite being owned by Warner Brothers Games, NeatherRealm was not really directly involved with the first Mortal Kombat movie, which was released under Warner Brothers Pictures in 2021. The movie was by no means a flop, but it was clear the video game adaptation lacked franchise insight, which you can only really get when those making the movie know the source material inside out.
"You can go on Wikipedia and ask, 'What are the most popular stages? What are the best finishing moves?' But it’s so different to be able to go directly to the horse’s mouth, the guy who has been interacting with the fan base for 34 years," said Slater. Mortal Kombat was created by Midway as an arcade game in the early '90s. However, NetherRealm later bought out the franchise and went on to release a string of new games from 2013 onwards.
By involving NetherRealm, Slater had a "sort of cheat sheet available anytime we had questions about the lore and mythology," which seems to have paid off. Mortal Kombat 2 opened to $40 million in the US over the weekend, which is a vast improvement over Mortal Kombat's $23 million domestic opening. Critics recognise the franchise's growth too, as the sequel currently sits at 65% on Rotten Tomatoes, 10% higher than the first film. In our Mortal Kombat 2 review, we call the sequel a "step up from 2021’s bizarrely tournament-less Mortal Kombat that lands some killer blows."
Looking to the future, if Warner Bros. does decide to go for round 3, Slater says his "dream is that they will be this creatively involved with every installment of Mortal Kombat going forward because they are the lifeblood of what we're doing here."
Mortal Kombat 2 is out in theatres now. For more, check out our list of upcoming video game movies or our full list of upcoming movie releases.
