It’s showtime. Producer Todd Garner has been teasing that the first R-rated Mortal Kombat 2 trailer will hit the Earth Realm in July, giving fans a first look at martial arts superstar and box office champ Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) in action. Garner offered a glimpse of the film’s red-band trailer — suggesting a bloodbath of graphically violent fatalities — before tweeting two weeks ago, “Before the end of this month, there will be blood.”
Warner Bros. Pictures has been ramping up promotion of the video game adaptation from New Line Cinema and Atomic Monster, first with a Cage-centric teaser poster for fictional action movie “Uncaged Fury” (from the studio that brought you “Rebel Without a Cage”) in February and a newly resurfaced ’90s-style DVD cover.
“I think I found the poster and an old DVD with the teaser trailer for the UNCAGED FURY movie,” Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon tweeted at Garner on Tuesday. To tide fans over until the teaser trailer, Boon shared a new look at the sunglasses-wearing action star of “Uncaged Fury” with a mock cover that appears to be inspired by explosive posters like 1990’s Die Hard 2 and 2000’s Mission: Impossible 2.
The official @MKMovie account also shared the IMDb page for the “incredibly handsome” actor and martial artist. The “Best Fight in a Feature Film” and “Best Sunglasses” award winner — aka Johnny F-ing Cage — is known for films like “Hard to Cage,” “The Gist of My Fist,” “Cool Hand Cage,” and “Caged Rage,” all of which have a nice 6.9 rating on the internet movie database.
“Jonathan Carlton, known professionally as Johnny Cage, is a martial arts champion, action star, and sunglasses enthusiast,” Cage’s IMDb bio reads. “Star of such critically-watched films as A Cage Is Born, Center Cage II: Turn It Off, Ice Cage II: Meltdown, and the surprisingly heartwarming Bonnie and Cage, Cage is best known for not requiring special effects to pull off his impressive fight scenes — a direct result of his extensive martial arts training — and for being incredibly handsome.”
Based on the video game created by Boon and John Tobias, the Mortal Kombat 2 movie also stars Adeline Rudolph as Kitana, Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade, Josh Lawson as Kano, Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Mehcad Brooks as Jackson “Jax” Briggs, Tati Gabrielle as Jade, Lewis Tan as Cole Young, and Damon Herriman as Quan Chi, with Chin Han as Shang Tsung, Tadanobu Asano as Lord Raiden, Joe Taslim as Bi-Han, and Hiroyuki Sanada as Hanzo Hasashi and Scorpion.
“I’m so excited for people to see the movie,” screenwriter Jeremy Slater told ComicBook of the sequel, which centers on the Mortal Kombat Tournament set up in the 2021 film. “It’s been done for a while. We’ve been waiting for the right release date and waiting for the right window. I have been to those test screenings, which are full of Mortal Kombat fans, and watching them react to it the way I reacted to Avengers: Endgame. They were cheering and jumping out of their seats. Every joke is landing and they are loving it. It’s one of the greatest moments of my life. That’s why you get into this business.”
Mortal Kombat II opens only in theaters and IMAX on Oct. 24.
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