Mortal Kombat II Trailer Drops: Karl Urban Is Johnny Cage

Karl Urban has been officially confirmed as the actor to be playing Mortal Kombat’s over-the-top martial arts movie star, Johnny Cage. In the new trailer for Mortal Kombat II, Urban once again shows off his own version of grit-and-sweat swagger, this time as a more “meta” take on one of the franchise’s most enduring fan-favorite characters. It’s a major shift for the saga, and an even bigger step forward on Warner Bros.’s long-shot bid to revive the cult video game series as a successful screen franchise.

Urban, who has been playing mercenary and faux-sociopath Billy Butcher on the hit Amazon series The Boys, will no doubt be a big draw for fans of his action-heavy and genre-blending work (think Star Trek, Dredd, Jane Doe), but he also comes equipped with exactly the kind of physicality and star power needed to handle playing a character that gets lots of lines that are knowingly wacky, and still give them the weight and energy they need.

(Urban also has experience in the Mortal Kombat franchise, having had a non-speaking role in the 2021 reboot, the first appearance of Cage’s eventual successor Cole Young, played by Lewis Tan.)

But this new version of Johnny Cage is going to be a bit different from the one that we’ve seen, and heard about, in the comics and games. Sure, he’s still good at throwing punches, and there’s plenty of swagger to Urban’s delivery of the character.

But while Cage is best known from the games as the cocky, cool peak-career action star, the version Urban is playing in Mortal Kombat II is a more self-aware—and also “washed-up”—take on the character that’s very much in keeping with the franchise’s current, increasingly-meta approach.

The new trailer is a follow-up to a fake teaser trailer for Uncaged Fury, the fictional 1990s Johnny Cage movie that Warner Bros. released yesterday. The VHS-quality fake trailer plays up Cage’s in-universe filmography, complete with silly action set pieces and implausibly violent martial arts moves. In-character end credits mention other Cage films, like Cool Hand Cage, Hard to Cage, and Rebel Without a Cage.

Mortal Kombat II is, in addition to a sequel to the reboot film of the same name from 2021, also a direct sequel to the 1995 Mortal Kombat, which first introduced Shang Tsung (played by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), Raiden, and Sonya Blade and finished with the big surprise reveal that Johnny Cage (who had not yet been seen or introduced in the live-action series) would be coming next.

The 2021 reboot film was directed by Simon McQuoid, and it was a middling-reviewed, moderately well-performing film that got a follow-up greenlit at Warner Bros. not just because of the involvement of that same director but because of the presence of Mortal Kombat’s most-popular character, Sub-Zero, who, this time around, will be played by Joe Taslim. (Returnees from the previous movie include Lewis Tan as Cole Young, Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Mehcad Brooks as Jackson, and Jessica McNamee as Jax.)

With the actor for Johnny Cage now locked, Mortal Kombat II is the fourth-ever live-action Mortal Kombat movie, and the first since the original film from 1995, which this year will be 30 years old.

The original live-action Mortal Kombat was well-reviewed and underperformed, but with time it has since achieved a status as a campy cult classic (we’d see that word again with both trailers). The long, unbreakable grasp of iconicity on Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa’s portrayal of Shang Tsung in that movie is a testament to how beloved it still is.

The follow-up to the first Mortal Kombat, 1997’s Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, was not well-liked and failed at the box office, after which the series disappeared from theaters. Its publisher, Midway, soon after would file for bankruptcy. Warner Bros. would buy the rights, and the road to this current Mortal Kombat reboot film has been a long one indeed.

“The mortal battle for Earthrealm’s survival is about to get a lot more personal,” the official synopsis reads of Mortal Kombat II. “The champions of Earthrealm are forced to come together – with the help of none other than Johnny Cage – to prevent Outworld’s evil Emperor Shao Kahn from completing his conquest of Earth in this ultraviolent sequel.” The film, like the first, will feature the franchise’s signature R-rated gore, fantastical stakes, and brutally realistic violence.

Fans can bet that Mortal Kombat II is likely to hew closer to the DNA of the games that made the Mortal Kombat series so special than the previous reboot did, given the casting of one of its most-beloved characters as its marquee star.

Mortal Kombat II does not yet have an official release date, but the sequel is in active production.