Some of you might remember a viral short from a while back called Mortal Kombat: Rebirth. It was an unofficial attempt by a director to prove that he had what it takes to make an action movie. Maybe I should make this a little bit more clear: Kevin Tancharoen is the guy who directed the reboot of Fame and Glee: The Documentary. But don’t judge him on those.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_gMRjL_6l8[/youtube]
If you saw the 8 minute short (above), then you know that it was badass as hell. And if you were following it as closely as I was, then you must know all the drama that surrounded it: Warner Bros had originally attempted to take it down, but then saw the interest it had garnered over the Internet and instead decided to turn it into a 10 episode web series called Mortal Kombat: Legacy, which totally redeemed the franchise from years of failed games and a movie sequel that made me wanna pluck my own eyes out.
Now, Kevin Tancharoen and writer Oren Uziel are getting a chance to put their version of the series in theaters as a feature length movie, and I have to say I couldn’t be more excited. Finally Mortal Kombat is getting The Dark Knight treatment. If you don’t know what that is, let me explain: remember that the original Batman movies were super campy and lame (no thanks to Tim Burton, who insists on making the same movie over and over)? The saga had all but died when Chris Nolan came along and decided to reboot the DC superhero in the style of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight and the epic cartoon that we all remember from our childhood. Batman is now a flourishing franchise, and turning corny heroes into dark anti-heroes is all the rage.
Thanks to a valiant effort from New Line Cinemas, Tancharoen is going to do the same for Mortal Kombat, which promises to be grittier, more realistic, and way darker than it has ever been before – hopefully resulting in a new golden age for the franchise. The fact that my favorite martial arts badass Michael Jai White, otherwise known as Black Dynamite, is starring as Jax only helps to seal the deal for me.
The plot is still being kept under wraps, but if the web series is any reflection of what the movie is going to be like, you can count me in – twice. Hell, maybe they’ll even get some big name DJ to do a sweet new remix of the famed theme music. FIGHT!
