Despite the changes at play due to the Warner Bros. Discovery merger, Mortal Kombat 2 will be unaffected by the shakeup according to one of the film's stars, Lewis Tan.

During a chat with ComicBook.com, Tan, who played the newly created character Cole Young in 2021's Mortal Kombat, addressed if the sequel would be impacted by the merger. Speaking on the matter Tan said, "Well, it impacts a lot, but not really us in particular because New Line is the studio that is under the branch of Warner Bros. But they're very happy with the movie, and obviously, it performed really well. It's one of the most-viewed films of their Warner Bros. Slate, even though it came out at the worst time ever possible."

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The Warner Bros. Discovery merger has seen some high-profile releases that were approved ahead of the new union become completely derailed. The most notable example of this is the cancellation of Batgirl, a film originally set to be released on HBO Max. Confirmed as an original for the streamer in 2021, Warner Bros. Discovery ultimately announced that, even though the film had entered post-production, they were no longer moving forward with releasing the movie. The studio said the decision was made as a cost-cutting measure because they planned to refocus on theatrical releases.

Mortal Kombat, based on the popular video game franchise of the same name, served as a reboot of the film series. Directed by Simon McQuoid, the movie followed Cole Young (Tan), a mixed martial arts fighter that is unaware of his secret lineage. He is soon hunted down by Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) and, in order to protect his family, joins a group of fighters chosen to defend the Earthrealm against the Outworld in the Mortal Kombat tournament. The movie also stars Josh Lawson, Jessica McNamee, Mehcad Brooks, Ludi Lin, Max Huang, Tadanobu Asano, Chin Han and Hiroyuki Sanada.

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Mortal Kombat Was a Major Success

The Mortal Kombat reboot was released as movie theaters were just beginning to reopen at limited capacity due to the pandemic. The film was also one of the first to test the waters of Warner Bros.'s day-and-date strategy to release their 2021 slate simultaneously in theaters and on the HBO Max streaming service. Given the odds working against it, Mortal Kombat proved to be successful, grossing $84.4 million globally on a $55 million budget. The movie was also a success at home, becoming HBO Max's most-successful film debut to date.

Due to the success of Mortal Kombat theatrically and on the streaming platform, a sequel was put into development with Moon Knight scribe Jeremy Slater penning the screenplay and McQuoid returning as director. Plot details are scarce, but when discussing the progress of the script, Slater said, "I'm working really closely with the director and the studios, and the game guys, and I think—I can't say anything about the actual story, but I think they definitely learned some lessons the last time around in terms of, 'Here's the stuff fans responded to and here's what people liked out of the movie and here's the stuff that didn’t work out as well as we hoped.' So we're really looking at this as a chance to take everything that worked in the first one and do it even better and give the audience even more and make something that is just incredibly satisfying and really exciting and unpredictable."

Mortal Kombat is available to stream on HBO Max.

Source: ComicBook.com