This week's Mortal Movie Monday presentation is the featurette Mortal Kombat Unseen, which details the creation of Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance. It follows the Mortal Kombat Team across one day of development of the game. This is probably very similar to what the team is going thru right now developing Mortal Kombat 9. There is even a few cameos of the team's previous game, The Grid, seen throughout the feature.



Thanks to TRMK forum member Tim Static for the great suggestion. We're still looking for great clips to showcase, so don't forget to suggest us a future video to be featured. Check back next Monday, for another great Mortal Movie Monday feature.

This week's Mortal Movie Monday presentation is a home made presentation by yours truly. Many people are unfamiliar with one of the most fun shooter games ever made, Midway's own The Grid. It was made by the Mortal Kombat Team between Mortal Kombat 4 and Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. It also served as one of Midway's final games put out to the arcade before their switch to the home consoles. I was a big fan when I first saw the game in testing around Chicago, and immediately started the creation of The Grid Guide here for TRMK all those years ago. I was even lucky enough to have my name added to the game's awesome end sequence (YouTube link).

Back to the feature at hand this week. Last fall I personally purchased three cabinets of The Grid from the former collection of the Chicago arcade, Dennis' Place For Games, that had gone out of business in late 2007. A month ago I finally got all three cabinets moved into my garage and had friends over to play the game for the first time. I setup a digital camera on the wall, and let it record the chaos which is The Grid multiplayer carnage. I split the videos into three chunks of good gameplay, and had to edit out some colorful language.

The videos are some rare glimpses of this game in action available today, and really also helps show how much fun people have playing the game. I plan on doing more videos at a later point, as demand You can watch the first video below, and then there are links for the other two below the video.


Video 1




Watch Video 2 (YouTube link)

Watch Video 3 (YouTube link)



We're still looking for great clips to showcase, so don't forget to suggest us a future video to be featured. Check back next Monday, for another great Mortal Movie Monday feature.

Today we've got the first confirmation of the assumption that Mortal Kombat 9 will be returning to it's former M rated glory, after the T rated Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe. That confirmation comes from Ed Boon's personal Twitter stream via a series of updates earlier today while discussing some motion capture work that was in progress at for Mortal Kombat 9.

Ed Boon (@noobde): Motion capturing special moves & fatalities today....they are kind of sick !!

Ed Boon: Carlos & Rick O. doin some kool fatalities. I hope we aren't taking these too far. :(

Me (@McCarron): @noobde If you are not sure if you are taking them too far, that means you can go further.

Ed Boon: @McCarron U r absolutely right. People want an M-rated MK....dammit we will give them an M-rated MK.

Ed Boon: still...they are sick. :

I think this is great news, as it shows that the MK Team is attempting to push the envelope of the M rating in Mortal Kombat 9. I believe they will be amping up the violence to a level which is expected from Mortal Kombat. It sounds very much in the direction the team was going in before the DC Comics crossover opportunity presented itself. That would be great news, as it means they have had plenty of time to let ideas grow and evolve over the past few years. I know I personally can't wait to see it.

Credit for this story goes to Mortal Kombat Online. Since their story includes my Twitter name @McCarron, I figured we should get around to posting it now to let our readers know from me directly. You can also follow TRMK on Twitter as well as the fun to-follow Mortal Kombat Re-Tweets who reposts fun Mortal Kombat references found on Twitter all week long.

As a funny side note, Ed also threw in a great joke later giving a new subtitle to Mortal Kombat 9: "Attack of the Nuns: Get in the Habbit !!". Seems that he has dropped the "Attack of the Dogs" line and added in Nuns instead.

Game Politics is reporting that Mortal Kombat movie production company Threshold Entertainment is seeking to gain partial ownership rights of some of the Mortal Kombat intellectual property, including film and television rights. Here is an excerpt from their complaint sent to the US Bankrupcy Court.

The Mortal Kombat series, as it stands today, is far more a creation of Threshold and Kasanoff than of Midway. Midway's creative input was almost entirely limited to the videogames. On their own, the videogames provided only minimal back-story and mythology, and only flat, "stock" characters... Kasanoff and Threshold were responsible for virtually all of the creative input that went into turning the videogame concept into a multimedia enterprise.

This is highly unusual seeing as appears to fans that his company Threshold Entertainment stopped supporting the Mortal Kombat franchise many years ago. Just look at their website MortalKombat.com which hasn't been updated in over five years, and has no real great content to speak of that could benefit the series. Not to mention they never got around to releasing the fan favorite TV series, Mortal Kombat Conquest on DVD, or even given fans better quality releases of the original movies.

Not to mention the outrageous "flat, stock characters" claim, which can be easily disputed by reading Gamespot's History of Mortal Kombat (which was co-written by TRMK's own Jeff Greeson) and almost entirely sourced by the games themselves.

It is likely that this could hold up the Midway sale process which was to wrap in the next few weeks. We personally hope that Threshold loses their claim of ownership rights so a better studio, like Warner Bros. maybe, can properly re-introduce the world to the Mortal Kombat universe via film someday.

The LA Times is reporting today motion picture studio Warner Bros. is the sole bidder in the auction sale process of Midway Games. Their original bid of $33 million USD emerged as the only bid that Midway Games got during the bidding process that occurred during the last month, despite many other parties taking a look at the studio.

Next week will be a hearing with the US Bankruptcy Court regarding those parties who are objectifying to the sale of Midway Games. One is Threshold Entertainment, which we covered yesterday, and the other is Vin Diesel's Tigon Studios which is questioning the sale of the movie rights to the game Wheelman.

Before the deal goes through, the Delaware court overseeing Midway's bankruptcy will have to resolve complaints by several creditors about the acquisition process. One of those is producer Larry Kasanoff's Threshold Entertainment, which produced two previous "Mortal Kombat" films and claims it has exclusive big-screen and TV rights to the series. Also objecting to the sales process is Tigon Games, a production company controlled by Vin Diesel, which claims it is owed $200,000 for the star's work on the recently released game "Wheelman."

Also of an interesting note is rumors around that Warner Brothers is also looking to purchase game studio Codemasters who is responsible for the Colin McRae Rally series of racing games along with the ever popular Game Genie cheat devices of the 1990s.

The next month is shaping up to be an interesting one, as everything regarding the sale of Midway Games to Warner Brothers will be coming to light. Best of luck to all of our friends at Midway Games, who are currently deep into development of Mortal Kombat 9.