It's a battlecry that continues to echo through the annals of gaming history. The bellowing shout of "Mortal Kombat" was originally meant to gather fans around home console ports released on the first Mortal Monday, but its subsequent use in music and promotion has taken on a life of its own. Now after almost thirty years the man behind the shout has allegedly been discovered!

We jokingly dubbed the commercial's shouting boy "Morty Monday" when a popular YouTuber speculated about his enigmatic yelling. Thanks to the sleuthing efforts of another YouTube channel, RKVC (via Slate), we can now know him as actor Kyle Wyatt!

Watch: Mortal Monday Commercial | RKVC found the voice of MORTAL KOMBAT | Unedited RKVC Interview with Kyle Wyatt

The key to finding the lost star of Mortal Monday proved to be an obscure Screen Actors Guild credit indexed within a PDF. According to Wyatt, it was just one of his first acting gigs, and it came without any pomp and circumstance. He wasn't even aware of its cultural impact.

The Texas native embarked on a journey to New York with his friend, Donald Wesley, to pursue a mutual passion for a career in acting. Fresh out of college and in his early twenties, he found himself in the financial district near Wall Street, pulled from a mob of extras by the director to be face that stepped out of the crowd.

Instructed simply to part from the group and shout to an overhead camera crane, Wyatt's audio was directly recorded in the street from multiple takes. As he describes the filming, it was largely the product of improvisational flourish. The final audio mix is the same shout he uttered in the early nineties, which Wyatt says was also modulated and used in the song Techno Syndrome, and to open the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie.

So it seems another longstanding Mortal Kombat mystery has been solved. When did you first hear the MK shout? Share your thoughts on Mortal Monday in the comments below and dive deeper into retro in the 2D Kombat Klassics forum!

With every new trailer & promotional spot the Mortal Kombat movie is revealed just a little bit more. In a new featurette we get to hear the perspectives of the director and cast while also seeing a few fresh snippets of characters and scenes. Watch:

Director Simon McQuoid remains dedicated to a mantra of respecting the material and fans who "deserve to see their beloved characters elevated to this cinematic height". This echoes sentiments expressed in his trailer breakdown and producer James Wan's comments.

The goal of being faithful to the source material is immediately offset by Lewis Tan, who promises a "powerful experience that we haven't seen before". That'll be particularly true of his character Cole Young who has no relation to the video games, but can be seen on building sized billboards reflecting his status as a lead protagonist according to the official plot synopsis.

The cast of stars comment on the details and mild contradictions of the upcoming Mortal Kombat feature adaptation. Chin Han (Shang Tsung) speaks to the epic scope of the material, and Joe Taslim (Sub-Zero) the cast of well known characters from the games. While the grounded "reality" of performances and action is something the likes of Josh Lawson (Kano) and Sisi Stringer (Mileena) are enlisted to remind us of.

The featurette also includes some moments not yet seen in the official red band trailer or various promotional spots hitting different markets. The scenes include crisp views of Kabal, Reptile, and Reiko. All that and much more, but worry not. There's bound to be plenty of surprises waiting with a final runtime just under 2 hours!

Mortal Kombat has been pushed back for a theatrical release of April 23rd, also streaming to HBO Max for 31 days in the United States. Subscribe to the MK Online calendar to countdown the days and share your thoughts in the Media & Merchandise forum!

Trends in cinema have increasingly ballooned big budget genre movies well past the 2 hour mark, but Mortal Kombat looks set to buck the trend by keeping its runtime under that threshold when it comes to reopening theatres. Read on for full details:

AMC Theatres have posted a runtime of 1 hour 50 minutes for the R rated revivial.

According to previous comments by producer Todd Garner: the theatrical release won't be jumping into tournament action as abruptly as the beloved 1995 adaptation, but the runtime will keep it close to the nineties classic, which ranged from 93-101 minutes in length. That's between 9-17 minutes shorter than the 2021 movie.

The new film dedicates around 13 minutes to a dynamic action sequence set in feudal Japan. The opening scene has been featured in previews, showing an attack by Bi-Han (Joe Taslim) and the Lin Kuei on gardening ninja Hanzo Hasashi (Hiroyuki Sanada). The pair are destined to meet in the modern era later in the film when Bi-Han serves the machinations of Shang Tsung (Chin Han) as the ice wielding Sub-Zero.

The movie will also introduce new creation Cole Young (Lewis Tan): a down on his luck MMA cage fighter with a dragon-shaped birthmark that alludes to a hidden destiny. Through well known characters from the video game he will learn to unlock his "arcana" soul power and fight back against Outworld's deadly warriors.

[Related Article: Mortal Kombat Movie Trailer Delivers Action]

Prepare yourself with the official movie synopsis and watch some of the latest TV spots that promise war & super powers! Then download the MKO App via App Store or Google Play to subscribe to the release day countdown! Mortal Kombat is currently scheduled for theatrical and streaming release April 23rd!

Mortal Kombat will have a brand new protagonist created for the film when it returns to theatres very soon. The public is getting to know Cole Young ahead of his debut thanks to giant-size billboards promoting the film. Take a look:

Star Lewis Tan shared a photo of the billboard on social media [embedded below]. The building sized image repurposes the same artwork seen in previously released character posters, complete with the old release date. The movie was recently pushed back a week.

Franchise rivals Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada) and Sub-Zero have also been appearing on billboards around the United States. The movie's producer Todd Garner has shared two impressive shots showcasing the iconic warriors.

Mortal Kombat is currently scheduled for an official theatrical and streaming release of April 23rd. Download the MKO App via App Store or Google Play to subscribe to calendar alerts and add your feedback to the discussion in the Media & Merchandise forum!

Long-time gamers might be familiar with one under-utilized piece of technology from the 1990s: lock-on technology. This was Sega's buzzword that allowed the Genesis (or MegaDrive) cart Sonic & Knuckles to physically connect to other cartridges to enhance gameplay. Up until recently, it was thought that this was only compatible with two existing games: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, allowing the gamer to play as Knuckles in those games. This was until 2005, when a user-created patch added the ability to play as Knuckles in the original Sonic The Hedgehog (full story).

Today, a former programmer at Probe (who has chosen to remain anonymous) released the code showing Knuckles was scheduled to be a playable character in the original Mortal Kombat. Some of the details on the cooperation between Sega and Probe are still somewhat murky, but it is apparent that the gameplay was 100% finalized. We tested it on the original hardware, and all of the special moves were intact. Knuckles even has a Fatality. Check out the pics below:

It is unclear why the code, which appears to be finished, had to be pulled from the game. Perhaps it was due to concerns about the violence, or maybe Nintendo was upset about Sega getting such an exclusive.

Update: It's been confirmed. A spokesman from Sega of America, speaking on condition of anonymity, stated that it was important for Sonic & Knuckles be released with a rating of E for Everyone. That meant that all traces of the Fatality, or any connection to the Mortal Kombat franchise, had to be removed.