Karl Urban’s Mortal Kombat II Could be the Start of Something Wonderful

May 14, 2026 4 min read

Karl Urban’s Mortal Kombat II Could be the Start of Something Wonderful

The Cage is all the rage.

Mortal Kombat II has done pretty well for itself at the box office, with its domestic total closing in on the $50 million mark after a week in theaters. That means a third film seems likely. Presumably the studio will call it “Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3” and midnight theaters will have “Mortal Kombat Trilogy” screenings, properly bringing the ’90s back to life.

More significantly, though, it means that lead actor Karl Urban—who portrays washed-up martial arts actor Johnny Cage in the film—has more or less completed his infiltration of every geek property imaginable. Throw in a James Bond role (maybe the new Felix Leiter?) and he pretty much has the run of properties.

And you know, Mortal Kombat started life as a fighting game. Fighting games love crossovers—and Mortal Kombat has had more than its share through the years. So here’s our big-brain idea. What if there were a crossover fighting game that consisted entirely of Karl Urban geek culture roles? Sounds preposterous, you say, but consider just how deep a roster Mr. Urban could pull:

Johnny Cage

Mortal Kombat II

Johnny Cage was the joke character in the early Mortal Kombat games, the Hollywood martial arts star who turned his screen repertoire into real combat moves, somehow. And Urban’s take on the character brings that same energy to the screen: an older, slightly washed-up actor who weaponizes his innate ridiculousness. We say, let the serpent eat its tail! Create a video game Johnny Cage, based on the movie Johnny Cage, who was based on the original video game Johnny Cage, who was a movie star. If the recursion doesn’t knock ’em dizzy, his crazy windmill evasions will.

Billy Butcher

The Boys

Ah, Butcher. The guy who hates Supers so much that he turns himself into the exact thing he hates in order to destroy the thing he hates, which one assumes will eventually include himself. (No spoilers, still catching up on Season 5.) By default, Butcher is one mean son-of-a-gun, a bog-standard mortal capable of ruining the lives of most Supers through careful planning and the occasional really big gun. Like if Batman were a homicidal monster. Juiced up on V, Butcher is practically powerful enough to give Homelander a run for his money, making him perhaps a touch on the O.P. side to coexist in a fighting game... though the long-term mortal damage inflicted by V abuse seems like it would balance things out a bit.

Sgt. Rock

Sgt. Rock / Batman

One of the most enduring (and durable) comic book characters of all time, Sgt. Rock doesn’t have superpowers in the usual sense. But he has unerring aim, unbelievable endurance, a steely sense of calm in the face of impossible odds, and remarkable skills at hand-to-hand fighting. A man responsible for taking out that many Nazis is not a man to be trifled with.

First Order Stormtrooper

Star Wars Episode IX

Well, every fighting game needs the scrub character who’s just there to get punked.

Skurge

Thor: Ragnarok

Skurge had some ups and downs in his life: promoted to guardian of the Bifrost, demoted to janitor, pressed into service as the Executioner to Thor’s sister, Hela. The important thing is that Skurge died a hero by punching above his weight class, making a desperate last stand against Hela’s legions as a holding action to save his fellow Asgardians from destruction. That’s the kind of guy you don’t want to mess with.

Judge Dredd

Dredd

An unstoppable, remorseless force of pure murderous fascism from a dystopian future, Judge Dredd offers no mercy and makes no mistakes. Like Batman, Judge Dredd never loses. He is final boss material.

John “Reaper” Grimm

DOOM

Technically, John Grimm isn’t the guy from the games. For one thing, his nickname isn’t DOOMGUY, and he doesn’t literally wade into Hell to fight demons, Satan, and robo-Hitler. But he does manage to emerge from the ordeal on Mars as the last man standing, and he gets himself a handy superhuman upgrade in the process. And we have to assume that he’s every bit as good with a chainsaw as with a chaingun.

Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy

Star Trek

“But Bones is a doctor!” you say. “He’s not a fighting man.” Look, the thing about doctors is that they know a lot about the human body. How to heal it, how to resolve pain. And it stands to reason that the reverse is true: they know how to unheal it, and how to cause pain. Your assumption that the Hippocratic Oath applies in life-or-death combat is doing a lot of work here. You don’t want to mess with Bones, or he might start snapping his namesake.

Great concept, right? We can call the game... Urban Champions.