Warner Bros.' New Line Cinema label is partnering with the game unit Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment to create a new Mortal Kombat game. New Line is aiming to produce the new film next year and release it in 2013.
"It's really important that we show we can bring our game properties to movies instead of just the other way around," said Warner home entertainment President Kevin Tsujihara to the L.A. Times.
The purchase of Midway's major assets for $49 million now looks like a steal, as they've managed to turn around the Mortal Kombat brand and sell over 3 million copies for the most successful console incarnation of the franchise yet. Part of the promotion for the game came from the viral web series Mortal Kombat: Legacy posted on YouTube and made for around $2 million.
Now Kevin Tancharoen, who directed the shorts, has been tapped to do a feature length film, which will be written by his partner Oren Uziel. "The new game and the online shorts prompted us to consider a reboot of a brand we hadn’t been actively thinking about," said New Line president Toby Emmerich.
Tancharoen said this new movie will aim for a more realistic take on the Mortal Kombat characters. The production of the movie is expected to cost well under $100 million.
Now that the Mortal Kombat license for games and movies is under the same roof, there's an expectation that the new movie will release around the same time as the next game, or possibly in a single package along with the DVD and Blu-ray.
The lingering litigation between WB and Lawrence Kasanoff, who helped produce the '90s films, is said to be close enough to resolution that WB feels comfortable enough moving forward with the movie plans.
