New Line Cinemas has announced that director Kevin Tancharoen has signed on to create a brand new film adaptation of the hit video game series 'Mortal Kombat'. It's been a long road for Tancharoen - inspired by the original series, the 27-year old choreographer pulled together a modest budget and hired professional actors to perform in his reimagined film pitch, entitled'Mortal Kombat: Rebirth'. Starring Michael Jai White and Jeri Ryan, the short film went viral in no time, with media outlets and gaming sites scrambling for more information on it. Amidst the hype, Warner Bros. Digital Distribution was quick to snag Tancharoen and put him in charge of a whole new webseries, entitled 'Mortal Kombat: Legacy', detailing the histories of the game's central characters.
The series, while considered a success with over 10 million views on YouTube, garnered mixed reactions from the game's fanbase. Rather than sticking to Tancharoen's original idea for a grittier, more realistic look at the characters, 'Legacy' simply soft-rebooted the mythos. Fans of the original series generally enjoyed the cinematic exploits of their favorite characters, while fans of the short film were left feeling deflated. There is no news whether the new film will stray closer to the game storyline or the short film's storyline, but 'Rebirth' writer Oren Uziel has been hired to pen the upcoming project and New Line has announced that it will not be "an extension" of either previous series.
In case you missed it, here is the original short film, and the trailer from the webseries. Which one would you prefer?
A mortal combat remake! That could be interesting.
ReplyDeleteBtw I love the 'parallels' thing.