Two new action movies on the 2026 movies schedule, Mortal Kombat II and Street Fighter, are practically built for playground arguments. Everyone has their fighter, their favorite fatality, combo or character they absolutely swear by. So, with new movies from both franchises either already here or on the way, it was probably only a matter of time before that rivalry found its way into the press cycle via stars playfully taking jabs at one another. But Karl Urban, who plays Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat II, has a different take on the rivalry.
Urban addressed the supposed rivalry between the two upcoming video game movies after the Street Fighter reboot star Andrew Schulz previously joked that the Mortal Kombat II cast “only [cares] about money.” Schultz's comment then kicked off some playful back-and-forth between actors from both films. Urban, for his part, took a more grounded approach to the matter when he spoke to Collider:
I'm quite happy to let the films do the talking. For me, I want audiences to go back to the cinema. It's so easy to sit in the comfort of our living rooms and watch it on our home entertainment screens, but to get back to the joy and experience of sitting in the cinema with a group of people — experiencing their reaction along with your reaction, there's nothing like it.
That is the kind of answer you expect from someone who has been around enough major franchises to know how easily fan wars can turn into an exhausting little garbage fire. Urban has done The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Marvel, Dredd, The Boys and now Mortal Kombat. The man has spent enough time inside nerd culture’s blast radius to know when not to feed the machine.
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Honestly, his take is refreshing and, in my estimation, the right one. These movies are not actually fighting each other in an arcade cabinet. If anything, a successful Mortal Kombat II probably helps Street Fighter, and a successful Street Fighter probably helps the next wave of video game adaptations. Audiences showing up for one theatrical fighting-game movie means studios have a reason to keep taking the genre seriously.
Karl Urban made that point even more clearly when he said he wished the other film well. He continued:
I wish their film all the best. I wish them success. Obviously, I want us to succeed, and I want everybody who makes a film to succeed and find an audience. It's a fucking hard thing to do. The time and energy that people put into these projects is always a leap of faith. You never know how it's going to turn out, and you can get tripped up at any juncture along the way.
That Urban is a class act. It's easy to turn movie coverage into team sports, especially when the properties already have decades of competitive baggage baked in. But making one of these things work is hard enough without pretending everyone across the street is the enemy. He also said he is not interested in getting dragged into someone else’s storyline. He added:
I'm just very conscious of the fact that I don't have to fall into anybody else's narrative. I don't get drawn into that. These films are for one people. I don't approach it like I'm in competition with anybody else. I'm here to service the character and service the story and, ultimately, the audience.
That feels especially true for Johnny Cage, a character who practically lives on ego, performance and showbiz bravado. The New Zealand-born star could easily play into the rivalry and make it part of the promotional bit. Instead, he is leaving the trash talk to the comment sections and focusing on the movie.
Mortal Kombat II is now playing in theaters, so be sure to check your local listings for showtimes. As for Street Fighter, it punches its way into cinemas on October 16.
