How Superman Ended Up Delaying Mortal Kombat II’s 2025 Release
Fans eager for Mortal Kombat II will have to wait even longer—and it’s all thanks to DC’s Man of Steel landing right in the middle of Hollywood’s release calendar shake-up.
Warner Bros. quietly bumped Mortal Kombat II out of 2025 and into next spring, which set off the usual panic: bad test screenings? messy reshoots? Not this time. The delay is less about a broken movie and more about a studio that, honestly, already stuffed its 2025 win column.
So why the delay? Blame a good problem: success
Per a new Deadline report, James Gunn's Superman being a bona fide hit is part of the reason MKII got punted. WB has had such a strong 2025 that they decided to hold Mortal Kombat II for 2026 instead of burning it off in an already loaded year. Sounds ridiculous on its face — delaying a movie because you made too much money — but look at the streak: since April's A Minecraft Movie, the studio has rolled out Final Destination: Bloodlines, Sinners, Weapons, and The Conjuring: Last Rites, stacking seven straight domestic openings north of $40 million. When you are on that kind of heater, you start playing the calendar, not chasing it.
No, this is not panic about the trailer
The push happened roughly a month before the original release date, right after the trailer dropped and the internet did its usual thing with hot takes on the sequel's look. That timing made it feel like a fire drill. The reporting says it is not. This is a scheduling move to beef up 2026, not a scramble to fix a broken movie.
What MKII is actually bringing
The 2021 reboot did what the 90s attempt could not: capture the games' gnarly spirit and lean into the gore. The sequel is lining up to keep that energy, finally throws fan-favorite Johnny Cage into the mix (Karl Urban, having a blast), and points toward an honest-to-god tournament with finishers that will probably make the MPAA sigh.
'We are hoping this is not the end of the [Mortal Kombat] franchise. It is not like we are just doing this movie and this is going to be it, hopefully. So, we have a plan further down the line for things. There is character development [...] There are things that are planned because we do not want to do everything in this movie and then have nowhere to go with these characters. In movies, you are developing characters over time.'
- Producer Todd Garner, speaking to FutureBoyWho
The bottom line
Yes, it is annoying to wait about seven extra months after being a month from release. But if WB thinks MKII can help anchor next summer instead of getting drowned in this one, that is not the worst call. If it lands, they are clearly eyeing more entries.
- New date: Theatrical the weekend of May 15, 2026
- Runtime: 116 minutes
- Director: Simon McQuoid
- Writer: Jeremy Slater
- Producers: E. Bennett Walsh, Toby Emmerich, Todd Garner, James Wan
- Cast: Karl Urban (Johnny Cage), Adeline Rudolph (Kitana), Jessica McNamee (Sonya Blade), Josh Lawson (Revenant Kano)
- Franchise: Sequel to the 2021 Mortal Kombat reboot; action-fantasy with the splatter dial turned up