In the mid-nineties there was nothing more spectacular in film than state of the art computer generated digital effects. As Paul Anderson's Mortal Kombat was building anticipation with theatrical trailers, Threshold Entertainment decided to assault the home market with a blend of tradition 2D and 3D rendered animation. Cinemassacre revisited this oddity of its time in the latest Rental Review. Check it out:

Superhero summer blockbusters and licensed sequels have rewritten the box office rulebook for Hollywood in the 2010s. These days you're nothing if you aren't striving for a total media blitz, building a multi-pronged franchise "universe" across spin-offs and tie-ins. Marvel's Avengers has become the multimedia benchmark, extending its Disney-owned tendrils across multiple major movies, an on-going television series, several upcoming Netflix original series, and various other projects. It's the model everyone now aspires to - but did you know Mortal Kombat actually kinda did it already in the nineties?

The announcement of the first-ever Region 2 DVD release of Mortal Kombat: Conquest - The Complete Series has stirred a massive amount of interest within the fan kommunity. As well it should! Conquest isn't just a time-locked series that's only been available in its entirety to digital pirates, Australians [via a 2005 Region 4 release], and devotees of late night reruns. It's a unique piece of Kombat franchise history, and a rare example of a video game license thriving in a film environment.

Whether you're new to Conquest and the world created by Larry Kassanoff and his Threshold Entertainment Group, or simply revisiting, we hope you'll join us as we look back at what we generously consider the Mortal Kombat Cinematic Universe. Here's the rundown:

With recent reports of the third MK movie being started up again by Warner Bros., it was only a matter of time before Threshold Entertainment voiced its concerned about its own intellectual property rights on the Franchise.

Apparently, Threshold had signed a contract with Midway to renew its rights to the films as recently as 2006. Warner Bros. has selected a screenwriter (Oren Uziel) apparently without any involvement from Threshold, therefore they have filed a new breach of contract lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court stating that WB "has avoided communicating with Threshold and has in bad faith prevented Threshold from utilizing the interest they have in the MIDWAY property".

Interestingly enough, the complaint also mentions separate litigation from Threshold Entertainment against Warner Bros. for the rights to the two previous films.

Ed Boon, commenting from Twitter, had this to say:

February 17, 2010: Must. Bite. Tongue. Harder.... http://tinyurl.com/ylejpnu

So, who really is entitled to produce the third Mortal Kombat film - Warner Bros. or Threshold? Does Midway's bankruptcy and subsequent purchase by WB negate Threshold's rights, or not? These are the questions that will be decided in court, but its the fans who could ultimately lose, as there currently seems to be no end in sight for the nearly 15 years the movie's been in "development hell".

To read Threshold's original complaint in its entirety, click here (PDF format). To read the article on Kotaku, click here.

Thanks again to samus_aran3900 for yet another News Lead!

Update: February 25, 2011 – Warner Bros. won a major victory in a Los Angeles Superior Court this week, with the finding that a December ruling judgment for them to pay Threshold $14,000 rendered the rest of the case moot. (The original amount of the lawsuit against Warner Bros. was for $9.3 million). Warner Bros. wrote, in a statement to Hollywood Reporter regarding how WB honored the contract regarding income from the first two MK movies:

"We are very pleased that the court dismissed Threshold’s multi-million dollar claims... This victory fully vindicates Warner’s position that it accounted to Threshold fairly, appropriately and according to the parties’ contract."

While this seems to clear the way for Warner Bros. to proceed with releasing the Mortal Kombat films on Blu-Ray unhindered [full story], Threshold has announced plans to appeal and additionally, has 2 separate pending lawsuits against Warner Bros., one of them potentially hindering their ability to proceed with the upcoming Mortal Kombat live action series..