Yesterday, a Delaware bankruptcy judge approved the pending sale of Midway Games to the sole bidder Warner Bros. For the sum of $33 Million, Warner Bros. makes away with the majority of Midway's heart and soul, including the gigantic Mortal Kombat franchise and development team supporting it.

No word on the recent objections filed by Threshold Entertainment, producers of the television and cinematic Mortal Kombat projects. Although many Mortal Kombat fans would be highly supportive of Warner Bros. becoming the rights holders of the TV and movie projects, as Threshold has been suspiciously quiet on their parts in creating new projects.

Although the judge has approved the sale, it appears that a few things are left to clean up. But for now, it appears that the Mortal Kombat franchise and development team can continue to work on their future projects, namely Mortal Kombat 9.

After a few weeks off, Mortal Movie Monday (MMM) returns this week with a great new feature. This week our own forum member itobandito submitted a video he created. Ito works with Retroware TV and hosts this week's episode of their show From Pixels To Plastic where he discusses his ultra rare Goro statue that he found on eBay.

The origins of the statue are unknown, but appears that it only was released to retail in Japan back in the early 1990s. There is no known place to get these easily, but there are likely some sitting around in someone's storage room right now. Yet you can find the very similar, yet unpainted, resin kit for around $65 on eBay. Check out the video below for more information.



Thanks again goes out to itobandito for another great MMM submission. We at TRMK are always looking for great clips to showcase, so don't forget to suggest us a future video to be featured. Come back next Mortal Movie Monday for another Kompelling video.

Today on Twitter, Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon revealed a render of Quan Chi from the unreleased/cancelled downloadable content (DLC) for the 2008 game Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe. The other character that was to be released via DLC is DC Comic's Harley Quinn. Here is what Ed had to say:

"Excited about MK9 and WB, but wish we could have released DLC for MKvsDC. Here's a peek." - Ed Boon via Twitter on 7/7/2009

Ed previously stated that the DLC was nearly complete, but we are to believe it's release is unlikely due to the team focusing on Mortal Kombat 9. The exact reason for the cancellation of the DLC is unknown, but it's likely to be because of Midway's financial situation with the bankruptcy proceedings and the cost of further testing and publication & certification of the DLC with Sony and Microsoft. Also, Warner Bros. was on the list of companies Midway owed money, which probably didn't help with the cause much.

With Warner Bros. now owning Midway, it is likely that any legal obstacles for the DLC's release have been removed. So it is feasible that it may get released if demand is high enough to warrant it and Midway can allocate resources to do the remaining work needed. Let your voices be heard in the comments on the story in the forums, and maybe we can get the DLC in our hands one day.

For the past three years, rumors have been flying around regarding a third Mortal Kombat movie and everyone of them have been proven to be false. The latest comes from actor/martial artist Chris Casamassa, the original Scorpion in both movies. In an interview with the San Gabriel Valley Tribute, Casamassa slips that filming for the third Mortal Kombat movie begins in September.

Can this even be possible with the recent legal proceedings between Threshold Entertainment and Warner Bros., new owners of Midway and the Mortal Kombat franchise? Could a script and casting have already been completed by Threshold and the project carried over to Warner Bros.? Is Warner Bros. even included in the movie rights? No word on whether the ruling of Threshold Entertainment's claims to the movie rights to Mortal Kombat during the bankruptcy proceedings were successful. Both Threshold Entertainment and Midway refuse to comment to TRMK regarding the movie rights matter.

More rumors and more speculation tends to equal absolutely nothing even happening with the third film. These appear to be more of the same, so don't get your hopes up for another big screen production featuring your favorite MK characters.

We've received confirmation this morning that the name Midway Games is no more after today. The company will drop it's over fifty year old name, and continue operations under a Warner Bros. moniker effective Monday July 13th, 2009. It is likely they will be operating now under the Warner Brothers Games moniker. Development of Mortal Kombat 9 should be unchanged but will just continue under the new company name. I'd also expect to see re-releases of any of intellectual property purchased by Warner Brothers earlier this month without the Midway name attached to it.

Additional confirmation can be seen from a few of the Mortal Kombat developers on Twitter. Both Hector Sanchez and Hans Lo have put out their own tributes to the company name on their feeds today.

As someone who grew up with the Midway name being on most of my favorite games at the arcades, and later on the home video game consoles, this is quite an end to an era. I was always proud that Midway Games was centered in Chicago. Because of that, I got to see a lot of arcade games early because of the location testing at our local arcades. In my opinion, I think the name was perfect, and had such a vast storied history there is no reason to throw that away. Midway Games as a name will truly be missed, and will sadly have to go into the history books without being given a chance to make a better name for itself under it's tenure being owned by Warner Bros.

We'll post more as we know more. But remember, Mortal Kombat 9 development continues, just the name of the company on the box changes.

Update 1 7/13/2009: We reworded the article to be clear that this is not sourced on a few Twitter updates, but instead employees of the company confirming this change has happened effective midnight on July 10th, 2009.

Update 2 7/27/2009: It appears now that former Midway employees are updating their LinkedIn profiles to reflect the new name of Warner Bros Games Chicago as we previously hinted at.

Since as of today Midway Games is now Warner Bros., I decided to run a video this Mortal Movie Monday that was put together by Midway called The History of Fatalities. The feature goes into the history of our favorite finishing moves and it's use in Mortal Kombat over the past 15+ years. It is over twenty minutes long, and talks with various developers on the Mortal Kombat Team about what their favorite or least favorite Fatalities are. The video was only available on the bonus DVD that came along with the Premium Edition of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon for the PlayStation 2.

So sit back, grab some popcorn and watch this week's Mortal Movie Monday clip.

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We at TRMK are always looking for great clips to showcase, so don't forget to suggest us a future video to be featured. Come back next Mortal Movie Monday for another Kompelling video.

This week's Mortal Monday video was again pointed out by none other than Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon via Twitter and is another This Ain't No Game (TANG) feature from Giant Bomb. This TANG is the follow up to the video review of the original Mortal Kombat movie from a few months ago, this time it takes aim at the sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.

Giant Bomb's Ryan Davis literally rips apart the "simply awful" Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. He also points out some of the bizarre things that happen throughout the movie that don't make sense even to the fans watching the movie. They also put together an excellent montage of the horrible CGI effects though-out the movie. This video clip should definitely makes anyone laugh at it's clever criticism of this very terrible movie.



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