‘Mortal Kombat II’ To Give Kitana As Much Spotlight As Johnny Cage, Stories “Very Much Interwoven”
Despite holding him back for the sequel and then focusing most of its initial marketing on his debut, Mortal Kombat II will not be a Johnny Cage-centric adventure, but instead divide its screen and script time between him and the franchise’s resident fan duelist, Kitana.
This insight into the sequel film’s split focus was provided by the femme fatale’s actress, Adeline Rudolph, during a pre-New York Comic Con 2025 interview given to Entertainment Weekly‘s Nick Romano.
“Especially when I first read the script, it felt very much like the intertwining of two worlds. You have Earthrealm and then you have Edenia and Outworld,” said the actress, perhaps best known for her role as Agatha in The CW’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina TV series. “Kitana’s storyline feels very much interwoven into Johnny Cage’s story, and they go in and out of each other throughout the movie.”
Turning to her experience bringing the Mortal Kombat mainstay to the big screen, Rudolph recalled, “I was worried that I wasn’t gonna book [the role].
“I kept feeling like Kitana’s such an intricate character and so hard to nail because she’s regal and very poised, but on the flip side, she’s very vulnerable and very empathetic. So I felt to mix the two was difficult, but also an exciting challenge.”
As their time together drew to a close, Rudolph ultimately expressed her hope that audiences will vibe with Kitana and Johnny’s intertwining story, the latter as played by The Boys star Karl Urban, which she described as “the heartbeat of this story” before also noting that “Johnny Cage not being as seasoned as Kitana can be quite comedic.”
Notably, while the above quotes, as provided by Romano, do not make as bombastic of a claim as ‘Cage and Kitana are co-headliners’, it appears some portion of their conversation clearly indicated as much, as the reporter makes a number of references to the fact in his own words:
“Adeline Rudolph’s fan-wielding Princess of Edenia plays just as big a role in the sequel as Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage,” he introduces his write-up. “Ahead of the sequel’s presence at New York Comic Con this weekend, Rudolph and McQuoid preview how the movie is just as much about Kitana as it is about Urban’s Johnny Cage [emphasis added].”
Though details remain scarce regarding just how these two fighters will come to cross paths, the aforementioned Urban did previously speak to Johnny Cage’s specific storyline during a post-trailer launch interview given to IGN:
“When we first discover Johnny, he is sort of lacking a lot of that quintessential spark that I think fans of the game will know.
“We start him at a very low point. His career is completely in the dumps. He has no self-confidence. He has neglected his martial arts training. And at his lowest point, he gets called up to, essentially, be a warrior that represents the Earthrealm and fight for the very future of humanity. And as I read the script, I found it just such a compelling, interesting, dynamic journey. We start this character in one place, and as an audience, we get to see him evolve and grow.”
“A wonderful facet of the writing is they really humanize the character of Johnny and he’s not some [two-dimensional] character, not that he ever was, but he has room to grow. And he certainly does that as he gains his confidence and gains his belief in his self, [and] some of that sort of cockiness and swagger starts to come through.”
Mortal Kombat II is currently set to commence its titular tournament on October 24th.
