Movies based on video games have had a rough history, but over the past few years, moviegoers were treated to the best video game movies ever. Simon McQuoid's pair of Mortal Kombat movies (which are streaming with an HBO Max subscription) were ripped straight from the source material, to the joy of fans. But is a third movie going to happen? Right now it's unclear, but the director's comments are making me nervous.
Mortal Kombat II hit theaters in May, and while it performed better than its predecessor, it wasn't necessarily a box office hit. While writer Jeremy Slater has plans for four more movies, the studio hasn't made any official announcements. In an interview with The Wrap, McQuoid addressed the status of the MK threequel by saying:
I think it’s still going through its life cycle. So I don’t know yet. I’m not sure.
Well, this doesn't necessarily inspire confidence. While Simon McQuoid and company haven't heard any bad news from Warner Bros., there's still no indication that a third Mortal Kombat movie is going to be greenlit. We'll just have to see how the movie continues to perform on HBO Max, and if it gets enough streams that the studio decides to continue the R-rated narrative with another sequel.
Narratively, Mortal Kombat II's ending definitely set up future stories. After Martyn Ford's Shao Khan was killed and Earthrealm was saved, the surviving heroes (including Baraka and Kano) united and vowed to revive the various heroes who died during the last two movies. Namely Jax, Liu Kang, Kung Lao, and Lewis Tan's Cole Young. But only time will tell if we actually get to see this happen in a threequel.
Following the somewhat infamous '90s Mortal Kombat movies, Simon McQuoid's pair of blockbusters offered a much more faithful adaptation of the beloved video games. Much of this had to do with their R-rating, which allowed for the blood and grisly fatalities that gamers know and love.
This is a change that has been quite successful critically, but the sequel's box office performance didn't guarantee that we'll get a third movie. Mortal Kombat II made $129 million on a reported budget of $80 million, which is more than its predecessor but not necessarily a home run. But a strong enough streaming performance might be able to get a third movie greenlit. That's the "life cycle" that the movie's filmmaker seems to be referencing. I personally loved the first two MK movies, and would love for the story to continue, and more beloved fighters to make their way to the big screen.
Mortal Kombat II is streaming on HBO Max as part of the 2026 movie release list. Let's just hope that Warner Bros. greenlights a third movie, and we get to see those fallen heroes return to the world of the living.
