Johnny Cage’s absence from the Mortal Kombat reboot has been disappointing for some fans, but the film’s producer has now explained why the character wasn’t included in the film. The movie’s cast of characters will be led by newcomer Cole Young (Lewis Tan) and includes many longtime veterans of the video game franchise, including Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim), Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), and Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada). Mortal Kombat releases in theaters and on HBO Max on April 16.
Every fighter from the original Mortal Kombat arcade game will feature prominently in the new movie, with the noted exception of Johnny Cage. Cage has always been one of the series’ main protagonists, making up the core group of Earthrealm warriors along with Liu Kang, Sonya, Raiden, Jax, and Kung Lao. The character has played different roles in different games, but usually oscillates somewhere between the comic relief and the heroic lead. The 1995 live-action Mortal Kombat film also featured Cage as one of its central characters.
In a recent roundtable interview attended by Screen Rant, Mortal Kombat producer Todd Garner discussed the process of selecting characters for the new movie. Garner explained that Johnny Cage’s exclusion was made in the interest of compiling a more grounded, cohesive cast of characters to tell a more focused story. The desire to put actors of Asian descent front-and-center in a film about martial arts also played a role. Read Garner’s 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.”
While Johnny Cage will certainly still be missed by diehard fans of the character, Garner’s explanation makes a lot of sense. The new Mortal Kombat looks like it’s keeping plenty of the franchise’s trademark humor and self-awareness, but it also looks like it will hopefully be treating the series’ lore with a lot of respect. Johnny Cage is, as Garner said, a huge personality, and one that sticks out in many ways from the rest of the Mortal Kombat roster. Hopefully, his exclusion will help yield a more cohesive and focused story.
Of course, all hope is not lost for Johnny Cage’s live-action return. Garner still seems to have a lot of love for the character, and it sounds like he’s a sure bet for the future of the Mortal Kombat film franchise if there is one. Introducing Cage in a sequel after the rest of the of the characters have already been established would give him the proper room to stretch and be his big bombastic self, and he would automatically inject some exciting energy into a Mortal Kombat 2. In the meantime, the upcoming film has plenty of beloved Mortal Kombat characters to fight for the fate of Earthrealm.
