Several months ago, I had made a post talking about a trailer for a new Mortal Kombat movie that appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Starring Michael Jai White as Jax and Jeri Ryan as Sonya, this trailer (popularly referred to as “Rebirth”) was a completely new take on Mortal Kombat, with a more realistic urban setting, and characters such as Reptile and Baraka reimagined as deformed and/or mutilated insane humans. It later came out that the trailer was the work of a director named Kevin Tancharoen, who financed it himself and was making it as a pitch to Warner Bros. to make the next Mortal Kombat film. The trailer was definitely controversial, but also was very well-received. Even Ed Boon liked it, but he said that it probably went too far. The trailer was soon pulled off YouTube, and nothing more was heard from it. It was pretty much assumed “Rebirth” was dead.
As it turns out, we were wrong.
A report over at Bloody Disgusting is saying that Tancharoen is getting to helm a Mortal Kombat ten-episode web series, under the Warner Premiere brand. Michael Jai White will be returning as Jax, though there’s no word on whether Jeri Ryan will be returning as Sonya. She’s not listed in the article, and I didn’t get a response to my query on Twitter. In fact, it’s not even certain yet that it’s based on “Rebirth”. It’ll start filming in Vancouver next month.
If “Rebirth” is anything to go by, I think it’ll be really good. While I hope the series will be based on “Rebirth”, I’m fairly doubtful it would be, simply because it’ll be in wide circulation on the web… and “Rebirth” was definitely a pitch for a hard-R film, complete with gory deaths. Still, while it was a very different take on the Mortal Kombat mythos, it was also VERY reverential to the source media, and it showed that Tancharoen knows his stuff. There’s no word on a release date, but I would imagine it would probably be this summer, especially after the new game hits stores.
I’m definitely looking forward to it. :-)