Johnny Cage may not be in the Mortal Kombat reboot, but he will be featured in the sequel, according to producer Todd Garner. The new film will tell a slight variation of the original MK story, following a group of martial artists and supernatural warriors fighting for the fate of Earth in a mystical tournament. Mortal Kombat features an ensemble cast that includes Lewis Tan (Cole Young), Joe Taslim (Sub-Zero/Bi-Han), Mehcad Brooks (Jax Briggs), Ludi Lin (Liu Kang), Jessica McNamee (Sonya Blade), Hiroyuki Sanada (Scorpion/Hanzo Hasashi), Josh Lawson (Kano), and Sisi Stringer (Mileena).
One character who will not be joining the new movie’s roster, however, is original Mortal Kombat fighter and fan-favorite Johnny Cage. Largely inspired by Jean-Claude Van Damme and played by Linden Ashby in the 1995 film, Johnny Cage has always been one of the central figures in the Mortal Kombat story. Often positioned as a larger-than-life comic relief character, Cage has nevertheless played prominent, heroic roles in several of the core video games. He will not, however, be appearing in the Mortal Kombat reboot.
Some fans have expressed disappointment at Johnny Cage’s exclusion from the upcoming film, but it looks like they might be appeased if a sequel gets made. In a recent roundtable interview attended by Screen Rant, producer Todd Garner opened up about how characters were chosen for the reboot, explaining that the emphasis was on building a strong, cohesive cast that all directly contributed to the core story of the film. According to Garner, Cage’s “bombastic” persona didn’t quite mesh with that story, but the producer said a classic Johnny Cage would be perfect in a hypothetical Mortal Kombat 2, which he wants to make. Read his full quote below.
“Johnny Cage is obviously the elephant in the room, and there's a number of reasons why Johnny Cage was problematic in this particular movie out of the gate. One, he's a very big personality, right? He needs his own space. It's very hard to just throw him in a movie, like I said, with Kano. So, taking him out was very easy not only for the movie, but for the sequel. I want to make a sequel, and I've now got Johnny Cage, which hasn't been used in the first one. So, I have a big stick and carrot that maybe they'll let me have a Johnny Cage real presence in the second one.
“Secondarily, when you think about Mortal Kombat, if you just think about like the patina of the movie, it has a very Asian feel to it. And I early on felt uncomfortable having a white male lead kind of lead that charge in the first movie. It just felt Hollywood-ish to me, which is weird because he's an actor, which also was weird. And then it's probably my bias of how it just feels weird if I'm trying to do - and I was - something different and diverse and true. Is it a cop out to all of a sudden have Ryan Reynolds - not him, but you know - as the lead felt a little disingenuous to me. It's super easy to bring him in a big, bombastic, fun way in the second. And he deserves that as a character. I love these characters, so we thought hard about it.
“Then you look at, "What is the movie you want to tell?" Do you want to just jump into a movie having characters kick the shit out of each other, and that's the movie you're gonna make, and it's gonna be fun, and don't worry about it? Then you don't start with 10 minutes of Asian people speaking in their native tongues and take time to set up a romance and a tragedy. You don't do that in that movie. So, when we decided to do that in that movie, then it's a more gentle, slow, thoughtful character experience. And therefore you need somebody that can serve a purpose of helping you tell that story in a real way, and tying up all the loose ends of all the characters that don't necessarily tie together; tie them together in a way that you're not hamfisting it. You're not changing a character like, "Oh, I don't care about him. We're just gonna make him this."
The Mortal Kombat reboot is going to have its hands full giving proper arcs and screen time to all of its characters, so the decision to save a major player like Johnny Cage for the sequel seems smart. By bringing Cage in after the rest of the roster has already been established, a sequel could better build a version of the character that’s entirely loyal to the games, rather than forcing him to fit with the rest of the ensemble. With luck, Johnny Cage fans will see him properly return to the big screen soon.
Garner’s comments about centering actors and characters of Asian descent in Mortal Kombat also help justify Johnny Cage’s absence. Hollywood has a long and messy history of whitewashing stories based in Asian culture, history and myth, and the 1995 Mortal Kombat film is pretty guilty of that as well. By centering characters like Cole, Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Sub-Zero and Scorpion, the new Mortal Kombat can hopefully bring the industry one step closer to equitable representation.
