Mortal Kombat Is Koming Bak to Theaters

In light of a Wyatt Earp story followed by a Mortal Kombat story, I thought this video was relevant.

That’s right, Mortal Kombat, which first came to theaters in 1995 with Paul WS Anderson directing (he of the floating zeppelin pirate ships), is coming back, and it’s all Michael Jai White’s fault. That’s because the buff ball of ass-kicking and charisma starred as Jax in an eight-minute internet short called Mortal Kombat: Rebirth (embedded below). It was director Kevin Tancharoen (who also directed the Glee 3D Concert Movie, strangely)’s attempt to prove that he could direct a new version of the movie. Warner Premiere ordered 10 episodes for a web series, and now New Line has hired Tancharoen and his writer, Oren Uziel, to make a movie, so it looks like it worked.

Tancharoen’s effort created enough of a demand when it leaked online that the studio’s digital division, Warner Premiere, made a deal with him to generate a 10-episode Web series. Those episodes began airing on YouTube in April 2011. New Line then went to Tancharoen and Uziel and put together the movie.The studio is keeping the plot under wraps. Uziel wrote The Kitchen Sink, a mashup of vampires, zombies and aliens that made the Black List and sold to Sony Pictures and producer Matt Tolmach. [Deadline]

You can watch the original short after the jump. The fight scenes are decent, but other than that it’s pretty dumb and kind of gross. But it has lots of slow motion, which makes it seem important.

[picture via Movieline]

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