MORTAL KOMBAT III Is Already in the Works as Writer Jeremy Slater Aims to Top the Sequel
The next round of cinematic carnage hasn’t even hit theaters yet, and the team behind Mortal Kombat II is already thinking several moves ahead.
Warner Bros. is clearly confident in what they’ve got, because the studio didn’t just greenlight another sequel early, they brought back writer Jeremy Slater to start shaping Mortal Kombat III before audiences have fully experienced the second film.
Originally slated for release last year, Mortal Kombat II ended up getting a strategic delay. At some point, the studio recognized its potential as a major summer hit and decided to lean in. That meant expanding the franchise sooner rather than later, with Slater diving straight into the next chapter.
Slater shared a bit about his early approach to the script, telling io9:, “I finished a really early draft that was kind of a throw-everything-at-the-wall draft and see what sticks, which is kind of what my process was on part two as well.
“And then we have a great creative brain trust between me, Dave Neustadter at New Line, and producer Todd Garner, and the three of us really kind of put our heads together and kind of look at like, ‘Okay, well, what’s good about this?'”
At that stage, though, he was essentially building Mortal Kombat III without knowing how fans would react to Part II. That’s starting to change now, and it’s shaping the direction of the next film in a big way.
“For a very long time, I’ve been writing and developing Mortal Kombat III sort of in a vacuum. And now that fans are seeing it and responding to it, we can see tonally what’s working.
“We can see, in terms of the characters, who are they responding to, [and] who are they going to want to see more of in a part three,” he said.
That feedback loop is exactly what long-running franchises need to stay sharp. It’s not just about bigger fights or more fatalities, it’s about dialing into what fans actually care about and pushing those elements further.
Right now, Slater says he’s about two-thirds of the way through a more polished draft, using everything learned from the sequel to refine what comes next. His goal is simple, even if it’s a tall order.
“In the same way that we took the lessons from one to make two even better, I want to take the lessons from two and make three the best one yet. That is the ultimate goal. But, you know, all of these decisions are ultimately out of my hands.
“My job isn’t to make a good movie. It’s to give the filmmakers all the tools they need to make an incredible movie. So I am happy to be a part of this universe for as long as they will have me.”
That mindset might be exactly what this franchise needs. The first film laid the groundwork, the second looks ready to expand the scale, and the third could be where everything clicks into place.
Fans won’t have to wait much longer to see how things evolve. Mortal Kombat II hits theaters on May 8.