It began last June when the nearly 8-minute longform trailer you see above for a supposed movie titled Mortal Kombat: Rebirth hit the Internet and was viewed by millions of people. Shortly thereafter a nine-episode web series titled Mortal Kombat: Legacy was launched this last April, directed by Kevin Tancharoen (Fame, Glee 3D). Now New Line has decided the experiment was a success and has tapped Tancharoen to direct a feature film based on the popular fighting game back to the big screen.
This will mark Mortal Kombat’s return to theaters after a 1995 adaptation and the 1997 sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Oren Uziel, who wrote the web series, is on board to pen the feature adaptation and word is this new story will not serve as an extension of the game of digital series. The short film featured Michael Jai White as Jax, Jeri Ryan as Sonya Blade, Matt Mullins as Johnny Cage, Ian Anthony Dale as Scorpion and Lateef Crowder as Baraka, but there are no actors attached to the feature at this point.
The interesting piece of this story is that Tancharoen and Uziel’s original longform trailer was unauthorized by Warner Bros., and after completing it and before submitting it to Warner Bros. for feature consideration, Tancharoen accidentally uploaded it to YouTube to show a friend and instead of making it private, made it public and here we are today. WB owns rights to the Mortal Kombat franchise and recently, through their interactive division, released a new game this past April. And despite being initially upset about the new video, once the trailer went viral they decided to front the nine short films through Warner Premiere and released the web series online for free and the success of that series brings us to where we are today.
Warner Bros. Interactive recently announced sales of the latest installment of the video game series topped 3 million units. The final episode in the nine episode short film series has garnered 5,039,445 views as of publishing, which makes me wonder just what kind of budget Tancharoen is going to have to work with. Unless they can find a way to make this film for the masses I have a hard time believing Mortal Kombat fans alone will be able to generate much box-office.
The original Rebirth trailer was made for $7,500. I couldn’t find budgetary details on Legacy.
If you haven’t seen the web series titled Mortal Kombat: Legacy I have included all nine episodes on the next page. Enjoy.
