Mortal Kombat 2: Tati Gabrielle in talks to play Jade

According to THR, Tati Gabrielle is in final negotiations to join the cast of Mortal Kombat 2 as Jade, the friend and bodyguard of Princess Kitana.

Tati Gabrielle is best known for playing Prudence Blackwood in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina as well as Marienne Bellamy in Netflix’s thriller series You. She also starred alongside Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg in last year’s Uncharted movie. Mortal Kombat 2 will once again be directed by Simon McQuoid, with Jeremy Slater (Moon Knight) writing the script. Production is expected to start this June in Australia.

Jade isn’t the only new addition to Mortal Kombat 2 as we can also expect Johnny Cage to show up as well. The fan-favourite character is an action movie star and martial artist who first appeared in the original Mortal Kombat game released in 1992. The character didn’t appear in the recent Mortal Kombat movie, but a post-credit scene teased that he would be on his way. It was announced earlier this month that Karl Urban was in talks to play Johnny Cage. THR’s report states that some of the cast of the first Mortal Kombat movie will return for the sequel, including Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade and Josh Lawson as Kano.

Although Mortal Kombat‘s reception was quite mixed, those behind the scenes know that there’s a lot of room for improvement. ScreenwriterJeremy Slater has said that they’re viewing the Mortal Kombat sequel as “the chance to take everything that worked in the first one and do it even better and give the audience even more, and make something that is just incredibly satisfying, and really exciting, and unpredictable.” Slater added that he wants to make the Mortal Kombat sequel that no one is expecting, one that can sneak in and “blow everyone away.“

Lewis Tan played Cole Young in the first Mortal Kombat movie, a new character who had some mysterious ties to the series’ mythology, and he’s previously expressed hope that the sequel will be bigger and bloodier. “There are so many storylines,” Tan said. “It’s very complex; there are so many characters. It’s a hard one to get done in a two-hour period or an hour and a half. Hopefully, they can make the sequel a little bit longer and we can explore more characters and more themes, and just make it even bloodier and even bigger than the first one. That’s our plan.”