Mortal Kombat movie has no room for Johnny Cage because he's white.
(screenrant.com)https://screenrant.com/mortal-kombat-2021-movie-no-johnny-cage-why/The new Mortal Kombat movie trailer was missing the character of Johnny Cage in favor of bringing in a new character named Cole to serve as the audience surrogate.
While they had the excuse that the story focused on the rivalry between Scorpion and Sub-Zero, that wasn't enough. They had to let the following slip:
"Cole Young's creation as a new lead hero also points to the reboot’s emphasis on actors and characters of Asian descent. The modern optics of a Caucasian man playing the lead role in a story about martial arts aren’t great, and Cage’s absence is an excellent opportunity to center Cole’s character and other non-Caucasian fighters like Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Jax, Raiden, and Liu Kang."
Once again, subverters don't even understand the source material they're subverting. Johnny Cage isn't the main character of Mortal Kombat; Liu Kang is. Johnny Cage was excised purely because he's white; much in the same way they attempted to replace Daniel Rand in the Iron Fist TV show for the same reason.
https://comicsalliance.com/marvel-iron-fist-asian-american-actor-netflix-petition/Archive links:
Screenrant article -
https://archive.is/dJp6vComics Alliance article -
https://archive.is/2Occj