Mortal Kombat II Just Got Hit With A Big Delay, But It Sounds Like There’s A Good Reason For It

There are four months left of cinematic entertainment to be enjoyed on the 2025 movies calendar, and until today, Mortal Kombat II was going to be one of those offerings. However, word’s now come in that the sequel has now joined the lineup of 2026 movies. That said, apparently there’s good reason for Mortal Kombat II to be delayed over six months from its previous release date.

Instead of coming out on October 24, the same day that the Bruce Springsteen biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere arrives, Mortal Kombat II has been pushed back to May 15, 2026. The only other movie slated for that day currently is Amazon MGM Studios’ Is God Is, although The Mandalorian & Grogu, the next Star Wars movie, will follow the week after. That also places Mortal Kombat II’s release much closer to the same period of time that its predecessor came out, with the Mortal Kombat reboot getting a simultaneous theatrical and HBO Max subscription-release on April 23, 2021.

So why the delay? According to Deadline, it stems from the success of the first Mortal Kombat II trailer, which was released in July. After the preview was viewed 107 million times globally, Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema and Atomic Monster have reportedly decided this R-rated bloodbath will be a better fit for early summer movie season. It also noted in the article that had Mortal Kombat II stayed in its October 24, 2025 release slot, Halloween would have followed a week after, and that’s a “not a so-vibrant time at the box office.”

Furthermore, Mortal Kombat II has reportedly performed well in test screenings, which would understandably make studio executives bullish about making it a summer movie. Throw in how fellow Warner Bros. release Final Destination: Bloodlines ended up making $287 million worldwide upon its release in the same mid-May period earlier this year, I’m inclined to think the right call was made with Mortal Kombat II.

So sorry to those of you who are excited for Karl Urban's debut as Johnny Cage, but you’ll have wait an addition seven months for that. Although the previous Mortal Kombat movie only made $84.4 million worldwide, this was at a time when theaters were still being heavily impacted by the pandemic. Thankfully, the action flick became HBO Max’s biggest film launch and earned enough positive reception that Warner Bros. greenlighted a sequel. Now there’s the proper opportunity to see if this take on the popular video game franchise can crush at the box office.

Once again, we’ll see if Mortal Kombat II can achieve box office glory starting on May 15, 2026. Directed by Simon McQuod and written by Jeremy Slater, the cast also includes Adeline Rudolph as Kitana, Jessa McNamee as Sonya Blade, Mehcad Brooks as Jax, Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion, Tadanobu Asano as Lord Rain, Josh Lawson as Kano, Tati Gabrielle as Jade and Martyn Ford as Shao Kahn, among others.