By: Hannah Becker
Mortal Kombat fans, we’ve got some news. The second season of the Mortal Kombat web series has officially been scheduled.
Mortal Kombat was originally a series of fighting style video games, initially on arcade machines. The first game was released in 1992 (my own birth year… a coincidence? I think not), but now the games are made for basically every home console. The series was constructed under fantasy martial arts visionaries Ed Boon and John Tobias, with the games being created by Midway Games up until its bankruptcy in July of 2009, when Warner Bros picked up the franchise. As part of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Mortal Kombat has spawned a loyal following (myself included), with its expansion even further into a successful franchise. Because of its faithful fans, Mortal Kombat influenced many other fighting games, adventure games, films, a television series, a comic book series and even card games that follow the story line- just to name a few.
The largest and probably most notable part of the franchise is, of course, the Mortal Kombat video games. They are known for being “mature” and for the featured fatalities, which are the difficult (and somewhat inhumane) finishing moves that we’ve all come to know and love. Although the video games paved the way for the franchise, where would we be without the other mediums?
Mortal Kombat: Legacy was the first web series of the franchise, and it was released on Machinima’s You Tube channel on April 11, 2011. Legacy, along with the Mortal Kombat television series and even the film’s sequel, Annihilation, were all influenced by the cult following that the original Mortal Kombat movie acquired. Although none so far have been quite as successful, the franchise remains alive and well hence the upcoming second season of the web series.
Mortal Kombat: Legacy explains what happens before the events that occur in the original game, while giving backgrounds of some of the characters. Should we be expecting more background information on ourmost beloved fighters (the undeniably sexy Johnny Cage), or will director Kevin Tancharoen take a different route this time around? Tancharoen started the whole idea with his short film, Mortal Kombat: Rebirth, a film that was eventually submitted to Warner Bros., but rejected. The short received a lot of positive attention from fans, so hopefully there is another feature length film in the near future. But first, the second season of the web series needs to be a hit.
Production has already begun, and the characters said to be included are:
Kano
Liu Kang
Raiden
Johnny Cage (
Scorpion
Sub-Zero
Sonya
Kung Lao
Kitana
Mileena
Jax
Baraka
Stryker
Shang Tsung
Quan Chi
Ermac
Kenshi
Machinima’s You Tube channel brought over 60 million viewers to the first season of the Mortal Kombat web series, so here’s to hoping the next season gets even more attention. Its growing popularity could help our chances of getting another feature length film, so good luck to directors Kevin Tancharoen and Casper Van Dien to getting those numbers up. There will be a sneak peak of season 2 shown during the Streamy Awards on February 17, so make sure to check it out before it finally starts up in mid-2013!
Via Crunchyroll
