Karl Urban may play Johnny Cage in next Mortal Kombat movie

Yeah, that sounds about right: The Wrap reports that fan favorite actor Karl Urban is in final talks to play fan favorite character Johnny Cage in the next Mortal Kombat movie.

Urban is one of those actors who’s always been very close to stardom but never quite got over the hump. He played Éomer in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, he played Judge Dredd in the 2012 film Dredd (where most of his face was obscured by a helmet the whole time), and is now headlining the violent superhero series The Boys on Amazon. He’s carved out a niche for himself as a pulpy tough guy specializing in sci-fi, fantasy and superhero stuff, and I think a lot of people want to see him succeed.

And Cage is a good role for him. In the Mortal Kombat video game series, Johnny Cage is an action movie star who wants to prove his martial arts bonafides by defending Earth from waves of freaky fighters trying to conquer the planet. The role was previously played by Linden Ashby in the original Mortal Kombat movie from 1995.

Karl Urban would be a great fit for a Mortal Kombat movie

Casting Urban as Cage would imply that director Simon McQuoid wants to go for an older, grizzlier version of the character. That fits with the the current timeline of the games, where Cage is getting on in years and has brought in his daughter Cassie Cage to join the family business.

The latest Mortal Kombat movie came out in 2021. It featured lots of classic Mortal Kombat characters, including Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Sonya Blade and Raiden, although it was held down by an original character named Cole Young, played by Lewis Tan. It’s only natural that Cage would join that lineup.

There’s no release date for Mortal Kombat 2 (or whatever they end up calling it) as of yet, but filming is set to start this year…assuming the writers’ strike doesn’t throw things off, which is might. Stay tuned!

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