‘Mortal Kombat III’ Screenwriter Confirms Liu Kang Will Return as a Fire God — and His Death Was Never What It Seemed
Few franchises carry as much fanbase pressure as the live-action ‘Mortal Kombat‘ films, where every casting choice and plot decision gets measured against decades of gaming mythology. With the long-awaited ‘Mortal Kombat II’ now in theaters, the conversation has quickly moved beyond the sequel itself and into what comes next. The film delivered a strong debut, and its ending has left devoted followers parsing every frame for clues about what the third chapter will bring.
‘Mortal Kombat II’ reunites original director Simon McQuoid with a number of returning cast members, including Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Karl Urban as the newly introduced Johnny Cage, and Adeline Rudolph as Kitana. The film carries an $80 million budget, a step up from the 2021 original, and opened to approximately $40 million domestically in its first weekend. That momentum has clearly given the studio the confidence it needed to think bigger, with the third installment already taking shape behind the scenes.
At the center of the sequel’s most talked-about moment is the fate of Liu Kang. In the film, Shao Kahn impales Liu Kang, but rather than simply dying, Liu embraces his Fire God nature and descends into the Netherrealm, stating that it is only the beginning. Screenwriter Jeremy Slater has now confirmed what that cryptic exit means for the franchise, telling Variety that the plan was always to bring the character back, but that Ludi Lin’s performance fundamentally changed how they approached the death scene.
Slater explained that killing Liu Kang was always part of the plan, but the team altered the manner of that death to turn it into something more ambiguous, raising the question of whether he actually died or ascended to another plane, a mystery that will be explored directly in ‘Mortal Kombat III.’
That ambiguity was a deliberate creative choice rooted in Ludi Lin’s impact on audiences. Slater noted that even casual moviegoers fell in love with Liu Kang in a way no one fully anticipated, and that the team had always planned from the start to bring him back in some capacity in the third film. The Fire God transformation, a pivotal arc in the games, is now positioned as the centerpiece mythology for where the story goes from here.
Slater confirmed that while ‘Mortal Kombat III’ has not yet been officially greenlit, the studio commissioned him to begin working on a script, and he is currently finishing a second draft that he described as making the threequel even bigger and more satisfying than its predecessor. Slater made the initial announcement for the third installment at New York Comic Con, joined on stage by cast and crew from the franchise.
Confidence in the direction of the franchise was evident even before ‘Mortal Kombat II’ opened, with the red-band trailer racking up 107 million global views within 24 hours of its release, setting a new all-time record for a red-band trailer. With a fire god arc finally making its way to the big screen, the pieces are aligning for what could be the most mythologically ambitious entry in the series yet.
Whether the film ends up fully leaning into Liu Kang’s divine transformation or continues to play with the mystery around his fate, one thing is clear: Ludi Lin’s performance bought his character a legacy that no script originally planned for. For fans who have waited decades to see the Fire God fully realized in live action, how do you hope ‘Mortal Kombat III’ handles Liu Kang’s resurrection?
