Original Plans for Mortal Kombat’s Johnny Cage Tease Was Much Different

The Mortal Kombat reboot was hyped for its R-rated brutality and a cast with promising talent. While fans and critics opened up to it with positive reviews, they only saw a glimpse of the most anticipated character from the movie.

Johnny Cage, one of the most prominent characters from the storyline of the games and the first Mortal Kombat movie from 1992, only showed up in the movie as a tease for a potential sequel.

The writer for the movie, Greg Russo, explained that the poster that reveals the highly egoistic character at the end of the movie had a radically different approach behind it than what ended up being featured on the screen. He told Collider:

Johnny’s tease at the end, the button, it changed different ways. I remember there were different versions of it. That poster was something that the design team did, which I love. I picked ‘Citizen Cage’ ’cause I just thought that was hilarious. ‘Fight For Your Rights.’ So I picked that and put it in the script and then they designed an amazing poster. And then it had lived in other places, so it actually wasn’t the button for awhile, it was earlier in the story, like they were walking and you just see it in the background. And we felt like that just wasn’t enough, ’cause you wanted to really hit on it.

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The writer stated that even though Johnny Cage is a fan-favorite character and showed up only in a minor way, he’ll be a major part of any sequel that takes place. Russo talked about how there was the plan for Sonja & Cole to go to the Warner Bros. studio to recruit the actor into their inter-dimensional combat league.

I remember there was a version for the end where they actually went to the lot. So Cole and Sonya went to the studio lot. I forget what it even was, they pulled up, and they were going to the meeting. It was gonna be shot at Warner Brothers. But it just felt like, with the pandemic and everything, it got to a point where it was hard to do a lot of that. I love the way that it buttons and it’s simple. And yeah, hopefully, we can tell more of those stories.

While there has been no casting done for the sequel, a lot of names are swarming around by the fans, from Ryan Reynolds to James Marsden. Even the WWE superstar The Miz really wants to play the role of Johnny Cage in the sequel, as he’s letting it be known all over his Twitter page.

The sequel is a certain possibility, as Simon McQuoid, the director, previously stated that there are four sequels planned if the reboot turns out to be a success, which it clearly has. Stay tuned for more.