1995's first Mortal Kombat movie was a big success, and was followed by sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, but here's why there wasn't a third film. While video game movies have a somewhat deserved reputation as being awful, one of the few that manage to rise above the pack is Mortal Kombat. Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, who would go on to helm Event Horizon and Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat wasn't amazing, but it combined entertaining fight scenes, likeable characters, and a decent, if shallow, plot to create a fun time for fans.
Sure, Mortal Kombat wasn't a perfect adaptation, especially due to its PG-13 rating, which precluded the signature gory fatalities the video game series is famous for. Still, it was enjoyable enough, and today holds a place of nostalgia for many who grew up in the 1990s. The film was also a big box office success, making over $100 million on an $18 million budget. That naturally led to a sequel two years later, in 1997.
Sadly, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation traded breezy fun and acrobatic martial arts battles for a rushed, convoluted plot that tried to cram elements of both Mortal Kombat 2 and 3 into one movie. There were also way too many characters to keep track of, most of which were played by different actors than in the first film. Still, lots of questionable franchises prove that being terrible isn't necessarily an impediment to continuing. In this case though, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation performed a fatality on the blossoming franchise.
Mortal Kombat 3: Why An Annihilation Sequel Didn't Happen
Distributor New Line Cinema and producer Threshold Entertainment had been banking on Mortal Kombat becoming a successful movie franchise, as evidenced by the fact that star Robin Shou (Liu Kang) had been signed to a three-movie contract. After the first film was a hit, plans for the third were already being formulated prior to the release of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. That was until Annihilation actually came out, and proceeded to disappoint pretty much everyone. Critics tore it apart, with the sequel sitting at a mere 2 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Even more importantly, fans of the games hated it, and so did fans of the prior film, leading to a nearly 60 percent drop in box office.
Faced with such a universally negative reaction, both companies decided to scrap plans for a third Mortal Kombat film almost immediately. However, the idea didn't stay buried, with a threequel - reportedly called Mortal Kombat: Devastation - moving in and out of development hell for over a decade afterward. At one point rumors suggested most of the original cast would return, and that Annihilation would be retconned, but nothing concrete ever happened. Eventually, Warner Bros. purchased the assets of Midway Games, creators of Mortal Kombat, after it went bankrupt, leading to the movie reboot set for January 2021.
