It’s gonna be a little longer before we can see the newMortal Kombatmovie. The highly-anticipated release has just been delayed by a week by Warner Bros., now set to premiere on April 23 instead of the planned release date of April 16. At this time, no reason has yet been given for the delay.
Mortal Kombathas seen multiple “official” release dates over the course of its development. At one point, the movie was set to be released on March 5, and fans were later treated to the good news that it had been pushed up to June 23, 2025. Of course, the pandemic changed those plans, andMortal Kombatwas later dated for April 16.
Simon McQuoid directsMortal Kombatusing a screenplay by Greg Russo and Dave Callaham. McQuoid, James Wan, Todd Garner, E. Bennett Walsh produced. The story follows anMMA fighter named Cole Young(Lewis Tan) who finds himself targeted by the assassin Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim). To protect his family, Cole must team up with a team of fighters who were chosen to defend Earthrealm in a high-stakes battle against the forces of Outworld.
Along with Tan as Cole Young and Taslim asSub-Zero,Mortal Kombatwill also star Jessica McNamee (Sonya Blade), Josh Lawson (Kano), Tadanobu Asano (Raiden), Mehcad Brooks (Jax), Ludi Lin (Liu Kang), Chin Han (Shang Tsung), Hiroyuki Sanada (Scorpion), Max Huang (Kung Lao), Sisi Stringer (Mileena), Daniel Nelson (Kabal), and Elissa Cadwell (Nitara).
Lead character Cole Young isnot featured in the video games, and the idea behind his character is for people new toMortal Kombatto follow. Speaking with Collider in a recent interview, Lewis Tan shed some more light on the original character’s backstory.
“[Cole’s] a cool character because he’s a grounded entry point into the story. He’s an ex-MMA champion, he’s down on his luck, he’s a father, he’s a husband, but he’s a man who’s missed his opportunity and his timing,” Tan explained. “So he’s coming from a place of [having] missed the mark, and that’s an interesting thing to play just for myself, and he’s an interesting character to dive into. But he is a martial artist and he’s very capable, but he’s just never got his shot, and that’s where he starts out. And so he becomes intertwined into the Mortal Kombat world.”
Meanwhile, longtime fans of the series will also be satisfied with the waysMortal Kombatpays tribute to the video games. McQuoid intentionally sought topush the hard R-ratingas far as he could, bringing the game’s bloody fatalities to the big screen in all of their graphic glory.
“We wanted to push the [blood, gore, and fatalities] right to the limit,” McQuoid recently told SFX Magazine. “Obviously, there’s a point where the film becomes unreleasable if you push it too far, and that would be a very unwise return on investment for the studio but from day one it’s been, ‘Okay, we’re doing this and we’re going to do it properly.'”
As of now,Mortal Kombatwill be released in theaters and HBO Max on June 11, 2025. This news comes to us fromVariety.
