If you’re a fan of one of the most famous fighting-based video games of all time, Mortal Kombat, certainly you’ve heard of the YouTube fan series “Rebirth.” Oh you haven’t? You’re in for a treat. Not only is the story at hand a rebirth of the film series based on the video game, its a rebirth of the career of the filmmaker whose only other notable work is an unsuccessful remake of “Fame”. The short film that started it all was created out of love for the series – and a desire to reboot the series. Turns out his gamble (and the good timing with the newest installment of the video game series) payed off because Warner Bros. is giving the creators the green light.That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, the original greatest fan-film for Mortal Kombat in the short, short history of fan films for said video game is going to be a major motion picture. It’s the two Warner Bros. units that are coming together on this one, New Line Cinema for the film portion and Burbank studios’ video game unit Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. For those of you that do not know, Warner Bros attained the rights to the Mortal Kombat series by buying Midway Games out of bankruptcy in 2009 to the tune of $49 million. Since then they’ve created one of the most wildly successful installments in the Mortal Kombat series, Mortal Kombat 9. The new film installment, though having a little bit to do with the game, will follow a more true-to-life storyline with special effects kept somewhat to a minimum.
Kevin Tancharoen and Oren Uziel present Mortal Kombat: Rebirth
It’s the original viral video above that inspired the folks at Warner to allow the duo to create an extended series of the short, complete with the full cast: Jeri Ryan as Sonya Blade, Michael Jai White as Jax, Matt Mullins as Johnny Cage, Lateef Crowder as Baraka, and Ian Anthony Dale as Scorpion. These same actors (and more) then move on to work on the rest of the viral video series made alongside the video game release (relatively, that is.)
The series that Warner eventually agreed on at first was a 9-part mini released by Machinima, a site centered around gaming and media video streaming, it called Mortal Kombat: Legacy. You can view the whole series through this first episode – once you get to the end, you can move on to the next, then to the next, etc. It is unclear at this point whether or not this series will be the jumping off point for the movie, or if the movie will simply be a complete reboot:
Either way, we’re pretty pumped up about this. Mortal Kombat is already a film series from the 1990s, one that only lasted two films and, though they did not age well AT ALL, remains a part of the kitsch-pop culture your humble narrator constantly feels the need to preserve. One thing is certain, this newest film will have nothing to do with the first two other than coming from the same greater lore.
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