While we exclusively broke this news back in
January of 2010, the success of the webseries has prompted Warner Bros. Pictures to move ahead with their remake of
Mortal Kombat with
Kevin Tancharoen directing the new adaptation of the classic 1990s fighting game.
The movie deal marks the end of a journey for Tancharoen, who will direct the new movie, says THR. Tancharoen directed a short film "Mortal Kombat: Rebirth" as a proof of concept for a
Kombat movie he tried to pitch. A huge fan of the video game, he enlisted Oren Uziel to write the short and hired actors such as Michael Jai White and Jeri Ryan.
The short was viewed more than 10 million times on YouTube, and although no movie deal materialized, he was asked to direct the 10-episode web series, which debuted in April, attracting more than 50 million unique visitors. Watch
them all here.
Off that success, Warners and New Line execs thought it was time to try to revisit a big-screen effort. (New Line made a
Mortal Kombat movie in 1995, which grossed more than $70 million domestically and helped launch a directing career for Paul W. S. Anderson. A follow-up movie in 1997, however, fizzled.) Uziel is returning to write the new movie.
