Trivia / Mortal Kombat: Annihilation

• B-Team Sequel: Paul W.S. Anderson had nothing to do with this film, as he'd moved on to Event Horizon.
• Completely Different Title: The French release was known as Mortal Kombat: Destruction Finale (Final Destruction), while the Italian release was titled Mortal Kombat: Distruzione Totale (Total Destruction).
• Creator Backlash:
  • Marjean Holden (Sheeva) was not pleased with how her character was killed off in this movie and said as such in a 2001 interview.
  • While Christopher Lambert speaks highly of his role in the first film, he admitted to passing on the sequel because he didn't like the script.
  • In a 20th anniversary Q&A for the first movie, both Robin Shou and Paul W.S. Anderson expressed their dislike for this film.
• Creator Killer:
  • Director John Leonetti's budding directorial career was appropriately annihilated by Mortal Kombat: Annihilation; almost all of his work for the next 16 years (outside of The Butterfly Effect 2) was back in his usual job as cinematographer, before he made a second, somewhat more successful transition to director in the mid-2010s.
  • For producer Lawrence Kasanoff, which was a double flawless with the protracted production of his animated film Foodfight!; that movie's failure killed his cinematic career.
• Disowned Adaptation: Mortal Kombat creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were not fond of this movie, and denounced it as the worst part of the franchise.
• Dueling Movies: With another dark fantasy film from New Line, Spawn.
• Fake American: Sonya Blade is played by Swiss actress Sandra Hess.
• Franchise Killer: There were plans for a third movie, but disappointing box office returns saw them sent on a one-way trip to the Netherrealm. Years later, there were serious talks of a new movie, that may or may not have been a true sequel, but production difficulties led to it being scrapped. It wouldn't be until 2019 that a reboot would be announced with James Wan as producer.
• Not Screened for Critics: The film was never screened for critics prior to theatrical release.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Done with several of the main characters. The only actors from the first film to return for the second were Robin Shou (Liu Kang) and Talisa Soto (Kitana).
  • Christopher Lambert decided against reprising his role as Raiden to appear in Beowulf instead.
  • Linden Ashby was asked to reprise his role as Johnny Cage, but declined because he was unceremoniously killed off five minutes into the movie.
  • Bridgette Wilson was asked to return as Sonya Blade, but she chose I Know What You Did Last Summer instead.
  • Chris Casamassa was asked to reprise his role as Scorpion, but he was committed to do stunt work in Batman & Robin.
  • Lynn "Red" Williams replaced Gregory McKinney as Jax due to McKinney's health problems. McKinney eventually died in 1998.
  • For his more extended role in the film, Shao Khan goes from Frank Welker to Brian Thompson.
  • Aside from the main cast, only one actor from the first film returned for the sequel, namely, stunt double Keith Cooke. Here, however, he plays Kuai Liang, the younger of the Sub-Zero brothers; in the first film, he was Reptile's humanoid ninja form.
• Stunt Double:
  • Tony Jaa doubled for Robin Shou in quite a few stunt sequences.
  • Ray Park made his film debut here as Raiden's fight double.
• Underage Casting: While Sindel is supposed to be Kitana's mother, Musetta Vander is only four years older than Talisa Soto, and looks to be about the same age as her onscreen. However, Edenians are all youthful-looking immortals in the games, so it's a bit justified.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Just like in the first movie, Michael Jai White was slated to portray Jax. Ultimately, he turned down the role, this time to do Spawn. He finally portrayed Jax in Mortal Kombat: Rebirth and Mortal Kombat: Legacy.
  • In an early script for the movie, Smoke was supposed to aid Mileena in the attempt to assassinate Sonya.
  • Stryker and Kabal's brief mention was supposed to lead into a subplot where they were captured together with Kitana and they would have joined the fight in the climax. They were cut out presumably because the movie was cluttered as it was.
  • The shooting script had a fight between Sheeva and the mortal Raiden. This fight was used in the novelization, however.
  • There was supposed to be a Sequel Hook with Quan Chi making an appearance.
  • As mentioned above, the decision to unceremoniously kill off Johnny Cage made Linden Ashby (for completely understandable reasons) pass on reprising the role when he was asked, though he did lend his voice and likeness to the DLC of the 11th video game.

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