TRMK - The Realm of Mortal Kombat - Since 1996, The Definitive Source for All Things Mortal Kombat

The digital age of movies has arrived. With Internet video services streaming movies directly to TVs, physical media such as DVDs and Blu-ray Discs are becoming less of a factor. The true value in these streaming services is that they bring out of print or poorly distributed movies to a much greater audience. Arriving fashionably late to this game is the video game cult-classic Mortal Kombat.

Netflix has added Mortal Kombat to it's ever growing Watch Instantly catalog of streaming movies to your computer or TV. If you're a subscriber, you're a mere few clicks away from watching one of the biggest movies of 1995 and arguably one of the better video game movie adaptations.

Have you recently re-watched the Mortal Kombat movie? Let us know if it has withstood the test of time and was as good as you remembered.

The Mortal Kombat Development team has been working hard on Mortal Kombat 9 for over a year now. A big part of the development of the game is getting the cinematic scenes together for the game. If Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe is any indication of what the assembled team is capable of, I expect the cinematics to be top notch in the next game. To develop the cinematic scenes they have certain actors do the voices for the characters and then they have another set of actors actually act out the motions to the previously recorded voices. Some may do both, but the two point process is used to get the performances captured just as the director wants. As this work has been progressing some unintentional casting leaks have been made.

First last month it was discovered that voice actress Dana Lyn Baron noted on her blog that she reprised her role as the voice of Sonya Blade for Mortal Kombat 9. That bit of text has since been removed, probably at the request of Warner Bros, but the Google cache still has the original text:

In September — right before I left for Paris & the South of France — I reprised my role as Sonya Blade for Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment’s next installment of the MORTAL KOMBAT videogame.

TRMK Forum member Tim Static later discovered that the Post Tribune of Northwest Indiana wrote an article on actress Brenda Barrie. Brenda lent her acting skills to the motion capture of both Catwoman and Wonder Woman for Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe. In the article in addition to discussing the current theatre productions she's taking part in, it also mentioned that she did work on the upcoming Mortal Kombat 9 but didn't get into specifics.

Still, she has side ventures outside of the stage that include character portrayal in Warner Bros.' "Mortal Kombat 9" video game, which has not been released yet.

Several shoots for it are on the horizon this year.

"They gave me a script," said Barrie, alluding to a facet of her job.

It's all about "capturing authentic movement," the heralded performer from the Robertsdale section of Hammond related.

"I might get in and out of fight poses," explained Barrie, who also called Whiting home for part of her youth.

After this was discovered FDMK found that Barrie had "Katana" listed as her character name on her website's resume. This is easily a mistake as she likely meant Kitana. Along with that she also listed that the game is to be released on 12/25/2010 which is the timeframe we reported in December of last year. It also was soon removed, along with the rest of her website contents as well. You can see a picture of the original website below:

Further digging by InsideMK finds that her IMDb resume lists that her next job for Warner Bros. will will be announced in "April 2010." So that could possibly mean that more will be revealed about Mortal Kombat 9 sometime next month. It would make sense to start teasing the game this spring, before E3 2010 in June.

We also did some digging and found that another motion capture actor Sorin Brouwers is also returning per his resume (now removed, bad link). Now while Sorin played Green Lantern, Kano & Scorpion in the last game that doesn't imply he'll be bringing those characters back.

Thanks to the many fans who sent us updates on this information. Also thanks again to the MK Kommunity for helping collecting all this information, especially: FDMK, Inside MK, MK Universe, and MK Online. Hopefully, as noted above, we may see more news coming sometime next month so stay tuned!

Update 3:10pm: It appears that Sorin Brouwers removed his resume. I would think his would be safe since he didn't unveil anything specific. The image from the resume remains above as pictured.

Update 2 - Ed Boon posted to Twitter a cryptic "9 + 25 = FALSE" over the weekend. This is obviously related to the mentioned release of 12/25 for Mortal Kombat 9. It makes perfect sense that the release date isn't going to be on Christmas day as it's both a national holiday and a weekend, and most games are released to retail on Tuesdays. As we originally stated it's possible the team has a target to have the game released by the Christmas season. This could be late November or early December like the release of Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe.

One thing that always puzzled me since the acquisition of Midway Games by WB Games is that the Chicago studio, home of the Mortal Kombat team, was the only studio to not have some official name and website to call home beyond the generic WB Games Chicago title. The other Midway studio that Warners purchased in Seattle retook it's old name of Surreal Software. As well the two other studios that Warners purchased that were not part of Midway also retain their old names: Snowblind Studios and Monolith Productions. Most development teams have some form of official name across the industry, and beyond being called "The MK Team" they haven't had some official title.

Then today I noticed a new website that went up recently, WBGamesJobs.com. What I found interesting was that it features the Mortal Kombat Dragon logo promiently on the page along with the other studio logos. Also of note is that all the job listings on the site name the studios the listing belongs to, with exception for Chicago which say "WB Games in Chicago."

Could this mean the WB Games Chicago studio will be getting a new name of it's own related to Mortal Kombat? My guess is something along the lines of Mortal Kombat Studios. Could they also get a website similar to the other studios to go along with the name for all game announcements and news? I haven't yet been able to find any signs or recently registered domain names that point us to the possible studio name. All I know the "Kommunity" would love to have one central place to call home, since the Threshold Entertainment owned MortalKombat.com has been inactive for close to a decade.

Another far fetched option to rebrand them Midway Games. Warner Bros does own the now defunct midway.com domain but it's unlikely the Chicago studio would adopt this title as they didn't purchase the "Midway Games" naming rights in the purchase of the Chicago studio. Unless they pick up the name as part of Midway's final liquidation is complete. But the Midway logos were removed from the studio's walls at the end of August 2009, it would have been a waste of money to have to put it all back up now. But it would allow the Midway legacy to continue.

I have a feeling that they will ge a real name soon, Mortal Kombat related or not, as the hype machine for Mortal Kombat 9 should be starting up soon to meet the targeted Christmas 2010 release date.

Fifteen years ago this week, before TRMK existed, I wrote my first video game guide, a not so good FAQ for Mortal Kombat 3. If you want to read more about my history with MK, I wrote a longer post about the past fifteen years over at my personal blog Infinite Shamrock. Here's an excerpt I feel that is relevant to TRMK readers:

When Mortal Kombat 4 began testing around Chicago in 1997, I joined up with friends who ran the website The Realm of Mortal Kombat. I’ve been working on covering all Mortal Kombat games for TRMK ever since. We are the longest running Mortal Kombat website still in existence. We to this day are still trying to continue to help fans in the “Kommunity” as well as we can. It’s not easy to do right along side a real job, but I will continue to do this as long as I believe I’m contributing in some form or another. We’re currently anticipating the release of Mortal Kombat 9 which is rumored to be coming sometime around Christmas 2010.

....

Through out the past 15 years I have also met and become friends with many great people. Everyone from the developers behind the games, members of the professional and amateur gaming press and of course all the other legions of game fans out there. Many of which provided great inspiration to me, and have been great friends over the years. I would make a list of these people who have helped over the years, but then I’m likely to forget someone. So I would just like to say thank you to everyone who has been a part of this journey over the years, as without you I probably wouldn’t be where I am today. I really appreciate everything.

I decided to celebrate this day by doing a small giveaway. I have assembled an awesome Mortal Kombat prize package to give away to three lucky MK fans.

Each MK Package contains:
- Mortal Kombat Kollection for PlayStation 2 (THREE MK GAMES!)
- TWO! MK games for two random systems (Xbox, Nintendo DS, PC, SNES or Gameboy)
- Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe T-Shirt
- Two Mortal Kombat Armageddon Wii Posters
- Misc Mortal Kombat Kollectable swag
- Various Midway Games memorabilia
- Additional surprises are possible, I may reveal them as time goes on.
Some Pictures Available Here


To enter the kontest, we've decided to harness the power of the social web. You have three ways to enter for a chance to win.

TRMK Forums Kontest:
- Register for an account in our forums.
- Leave a comment to this news story thread by the end of the day February 26th will be entered.

Twitter Kontest:
- First you must follow @TRMK on Twitter, so we can contact you.
- Once you follow us, then then you just have to post a Tweet that mentions @TRMK by end of the day, February 26th will be entered.

Facebook Kontest:
- First you have to join our Facebook Fan Page.
- Then post a reply to this discussion thread on our Facebook Fan page before the end of the day, February 26th will be entered into the Kontest.

Contest Rules:
- Contest is only open to those who live in North America due to the games being playable here only. Sorry!
- Only one entry per person per kontest, all additional entries will be filtered out.
- You can also only win one kontest, if your name is drawn for more than one we'll draw again.
- Contest IS open to our Forum Moderators, as they are unpaid staff members.

Again as I said in my blog post, I would just like to say thank you to everyone who has been a part of this journey over the years, as without you I probably wouldn’t be where I am today. I really appreciate everything, and I hope to continue to serve you the MK Fans for as long as I can!

As we predicted last month, film producer Larry Kasanoff and his company Threshold Entertainment filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Mortal Kombat owners Warner Bros. Kasanoff is still claiming to hold legal rights to the Mortal Kombat movie franchise and wants involvement in the development of the rumored third feature film.

This is a brief rundown of the lawsuit thanks to The Wrap

The lawsuit states that Warners has "failed to work with Threshold in the development and production of the third 'Mortal Kombat' film," and has avoided communication with the Connecticut-based company, which has offices in Santa Monica. In late January, reports surfaced that a "Mortal Kombat" reboot by Warners was under way, including the hiring of a new screenwriter.

I have a feeling this case will not be going away anytime soon, stay tuned for future developments.

Kotaku is reporting that all the former Midway Games titles like Smash TV and Robotron on Xbox Live Arcade have been pulled down overnight. Included in this is the very popular port of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. We're not sure if this is temporary, or if these titles are gone for good just yet. The game still has it's Xbox.com game detail page.

At this point we're not sure if you'd be able to download your purchased games again, which is the case of previous titles when removed for poor performance. Since that reason for removal usually centers on the game not selling well, it that doesn't appear to be the case in this matter. Also some people over at CheapAssGamer noticed that you can still buy the codes for the game on Amazon, but that is not a promise that you will still get the game.

Also of note that the Midway titles, including Mortal Kombat II, are still available on the PlayStation Network. We're not sure if the same thing will happen there or not, but in case if you still haven't bought the game yet now is as good a time as any!

We'll update this as we find out more!

UPDATE 11AM CST

Xbox Live's Major Nelson just posted to Twitter an update about the situation.

FYI: Some XBLA titles are no longer available for purchase from Xbox LIVE Arcade due to publisher evolving rights and permissions...

If you purchased it in the past, you WILL be able to re-download them...so don't worry.

The list of titles is: Cyberball, Defender, Paperboy, Rootbeer Tapper, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, Robotron, Joust, Gauntlet & Smash TV

Look for discussion on the games that were removed on my show this week

If you purchased any of those titles...you will still be able to play them or redownload 'em. An no, it's not Game room related

So we'll be sure to tune into his Podcast this week to hear more details.

Thanks to our eagle eyed "Kanadian" reader, Umon Daisuke, we have discovered that the Mortal Kombat films are coming to Blu-ray finally on March 23rd, 2010. There is bad news though, as it'll be sold in Canada only via the distribution company Alliance which is known for fast Blu-ray releases with no extra features. So while the movie itself may be all you get, it should look far better than the previous DVD release from 1997 when DVD was still a new technology and was inferior quality wise to the superior Laserdisc release.

Don't despair fans, there is good news, as any diehard Mortal Kombat fan in the US can order the movie from Canada and play it here in the US with no problems on their Blu-ray player of choice! Those interested can pre-order your copies today from Amazon's Canadan branch Amazon.ca and have them shipped here for around $27 US Dollars each.

Mortal Kombat Blu-ray @ Amazon.ca

Mortal Kombat Annihilation Blu-ray @ Amazon.ca

We have pre-ordered the first movie and will do a review with an in-depth comparison when it arrives. Also note the image on the right is not the official cover art for the release, we haven't been able to find that yet.