Mortal Kombat 2 photo teases Karl Urban’s new look to play Johnny Cage

Mortal Kombat 2 recently started filming in Australia and producer Todd Garner shared a photo of the cast enjoying a meal. If you take a look at the photo, you’ll see Karl Urban sporting some frosted tips and a more clean-shaven face to play Johnny Cage.

Johnny Cage 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 year that Karl Urban was in talks to play Johnny Cage. I’m excited to see the actor in costume for the first time, but I have no doubt that he’s going to knock the role out of the park.

The Mortal Kombat sequel will once again be directed by Simon McQuoid, with Jeremy Slater (Moon Knight) writing the script. In addition to Karl Urban, the film will feature a few new additions to the cast, including Adeline Rudolph as Kitana, Tati Gabrielle as Jade, Martyn Ford as emperor Shao Kahn, Damon Herriman as Netherrealm demon Quan Chi, Desmond Chiam as Edenian King Jerrod, and Ana Thu Nguyen as Queen Sindel. Returning cast members include Lewis Tan as Cole Young, Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade, Josh Lawson as Kano, Tadanobu Asano as Lord Raiden, Mehcad Brooks as Jax, Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Chin Han as Shang Tsung, Joe Taslim as Bi-Han and Sub-Zero, Hiroyuki Sanada as Hanzo Hasashi and Scorpion, and Max Huang as Kung Lao.

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.”