Mortal Kombat II was recently pushed to next year, but New Line and Warner Bros. Discovery are clearly confident in the sequel based on this latest update from Deadline.
Mortal Kombat III was officially announced at New York Comic Con a few hours ago, and the trade has learned that Jeremy Slater is returning to pen the screenplay after writing and executive producing the second instalment. The studio is said to be "high" on the second chapter, hence its new summer release date.
There's no word on when Mortal Kombat III will be released or what direction the story will head in. Todd Garner will return to produce, though, and we'd imagine the plan is for filmmaker Simon McQuoid, who directed the first two films, to remain in the director's chair.
Beyond Mortal Kombat, Slater is also known for his work on Moon Knight, The Umbrella Academy, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.
Earlier this year, Slater talked about balancing such a large cast in the upcoming sequel. "It’s very easy for these things to become three-to-four-hour, sprawling epics, so you always have to be judicious in cutting things down and what’s the emotional story we are telling and what is the story the audience cares about."
"Then, making sure when you get to those moments that matter — the fights, the fatalities, the surprises, the deaths — that they land and they are as satisfying as everyone wants them to be. I think we nailed it," he continued. "They had the best stunt team in the business working on this thing. The actors are phenomenal. It’s so much funnier and bigger than the first movie."
He'd add that test screenings for Mortal Kombat II have gone well, saying that audiences reacted to the movie "the way I reacted to Avengers: Endgame."
In Mortal Kombat II, Karl Urban stars as Johnny Cage, alongside Adeline Rudolph, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Ludi Lin, Mehcad Brooks, Tati Gabrielle, Lewis Tan, Damon Herriman, with Chin Han, Tadanobu Asano as Lord Raiden, Joe Taslim as Bi-Han, and Hiroyuki Sanada as Hanzo Hasashi and Scorpion.
Director Simon McQuoid returns to helm the follow-up to his explosive 2021 cinematic adventure, from a screenplay by Jeremy Slater, based on the video game created by Ed Boon and John Tobias. The film is produced by Todd Garner, James Wan, Toby Emmerich, E. Bennett Walsh and McQuoid, and executive produced by Michael Clear, Judson Scott, Slater, and Lawrence Kasanoff.
Joining McQuoid behind the camera are director of photography Stephen F. Windon, production designer Yohei Taneda, editor Stuart Levy and costume designer Cappi Ireland, with casting by Rich Delia and music by Benjamin Wallfisch.
Mortal Kombat II will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, and is only in theaters and IMAX on May 15, 2026. A new poster for the sequel was released during New York Comic Con, and you can see that below.