The official iMDB page has confirmed that Lewis Tan is not playing Johnny Cage in the Mortal Kombat movie, instead he is Cole Young.
Netflix’s Wu Assassins star Lewis Tan was cast as the lead in the upcoming Mortal Kombat movie, but the identity of his character was hidden throughout production. And now we know why?
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People believed that Lewis Tan would surely play the Hollywood-has-been martial artist Johnny Cage in the Mortal Kombat reboot. Cage was the only fighter that had not yet been cast and he’s a pretty significant character to the franchise. Production shots even showed Lewis Tan performing Johnny Cage’s signature sidekick and nutcracker move… and that was all the proof fans needed.
It was later confirmed that Lewis Tan would be the lead in the movie and that Sonya Blade, played by Jessica McNamee, would be his romantic interest. Avid fans of the game know that Johnny and Sonya ended up together and even had a child. There’s no way that the movie would go against cannon, would they? Well, they kind of did.
It has been confirmed that Lewis Tan is NOT playing Johnny Cage. The identity of his character has been confirmed by the official iMDB page. Lewis Tan is Cole Young, a (sorta) brand new character created solely for the film.
Who is Cole Young?
A leaked script initially hinted that the movie would introduce a brand new character called Cole Turner.
The casting sheet describes Cole Tuner in the following manner: “Lead Male. 30s. A brand new character to the MK franchise. Cole is a struggling and widowed boxer who cares more about his young daughter than anything. He is incredibly determined and refuses to quit in the face of fantastical adversity.”
It looks like the director has decided to stick with the original script albeit changing his name ever so slightly from Cole Turner to Cole Young. But what people don’t know is that Cole Young is not an entirely new character, he’s just a rebooted character.
Cole Young is REPLACING Johnny Cage.
Cole Young is a reimagined version of the classic Mortal Kombat character Johnny Cage. It turns out that they wanted to make him more relatable to the masses and therefore just made him your struggling average everyday man.
Even Lewis Tan gave us a sneaky little nod when we first speculated that he was playing the role of Johnny Cage when he shared our article on his Instagram.
There’s even a rumour that the movie pays homage to Cage because, at one point in the movie, Cole Young is given the nickname “Johnny Cage” because he anonymously frequents underground cage fighting tournaments.
James Wan’s Mortal Kombat movie was filmed right here in Australia. It even stars many homegrown talents such as Jessica McNamee (Sonya Blade), Josh Lawson (Kano), and many others. It hits cinemas across the world April 21, 2021.