Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon says they had a checklist of what they didn't include in the first movie for the sequel and it felt "immediately more authentic"

Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon has explained how the sequel movie felt "immediately more authentic" than the 2021 film. Boon is an executive producer on the upcoming video game adaptation and said that he and his team were involved from the scripting stages.

"For this film in particular it was great," he explained to IGN. "We really got involved with the script from the very beginning, which characters are going to be there, their relationships, their behavior and all that stuff."

Boon, who co-created the game back in 1992, added that they worked hard to build on what was missing from the first movie. "A lot of the stuff that people wanted to see in previous film, we almost had a checklist of got to have a tournament, got to have Johnny Cage, a lot of must dos," he continued. "And just starting from that foundation was immediately more authentic and more what fans of the games and people really want to see."

The first movie back in 2021 had a very mixed response from critics and fans alike. Sitting at 55% on Rotten Tomatoes, one of the big complaints about the movie was its lack of tournament as it chose to focus instead on the pre-tournament conflict.

Speaking at a press conference attended by GamesRadar+, producer Todd Garner got candid on the budget restrictions they had to deal with. "Quite frankly, in the first movie, the studio didn't know what they had," he said. "So we were in that fighting pit for like 75% of the movie, just because of the budget."

The sequel brings in several new characters, including Karl Urban as Johnny Cage, Adeline Rudolph as Kitana, and Tati Gabrielle as Jade, as it focuses on a high-stakes tournament ran by Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford). The movie releases on May 8 and is one of several upcoming video game movies, including Street Fighter, which is out later in 2026.