The folks over at Bloody Disgusting are reporting that Warner Bros. are in the process of making a new Mortal Kombat movie; as earlier reports have rumored, this movie will supposedly be a reboot of the movie franchise. The screenwriter is a virtual unknown, but has won an award for his previous unfilmed work. From the story:

Bloody Disgusting received word that Warner Bros. Pictures has been looking to redo Mortal Kombat with Oren Uziel in talks to write. Based on Midway's popular 1992 video game, the franchise follows the best fighters from around the globe who are summoned to an island to compete in a tournament whose outcome will determine the fate of the entire planet. Uziel's Shimmer Lake made the 2009 black list, which features the best unproduced screenplays around Hollywood.

While virtually nothing else about this reboot is known at this point, it would make sense that Warner Bros. is moving to make a new movie; with having acquired the MK license from Midway, Warner Bros. would want to take advantage of their new property as quickly as possible.

We'll keep an eye on this story, and will report anything new as soon as we hear it.

Our thanks to forum member -[?]- for letting us know about this story!

Where to start? There's not a major update at this time, but there have been a whole bunch of minor ones. Alone, they are seemingly unimportant, but as the saying goes, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. So with that, let's discuss the latest goings-on in the world of Mortal Kombat, shall we?

First, there is no more Midway.com, as the domain now points to the Video Games section on WarnerBros.com. While mainly a cosmetic change, the signs that the MK team is under new ownership is beginning to show. (Thanks to GoDisNotHereToday for this portion of the update.)

Incidentally, there is still a MidwayGames.com, although it's not working at the moment. One can imagine this will probably point to the WB at some point in the near future, as well.

Next, Ed Boon the Mortal Kombat team's test account (MK Noob) has been spotted playing MK9. Folks who have been keeping track of this account on the Playstation Network have noticed the change on their status. (Screenshot below, and thanks to MK Universe and their contributing user ShangTsung for the tip on this one.)


Finally, MK9 is clearly in the testing mode. Ed Boon and Shaun Himmerick had this to say (on Twitter:

Ed Boon: Did you play last night? What bugs did you run into?

Shaun Himmerick: Yes I played last night. Too many bugs to mention. But tons of audio issues and 'join game' of friends issues

Correction: The above "tweets" were in reference to another game, 1 vs. 100, and not MK9. Sorry about any confusion this may have caused. Thanks to McCarron from TRMK for pointing this out!

In addition, another team member had the following to say about MK9:

Hector Sanchez: First day back at the office after a few weeks and I am absolutely floored by what the Designers just showed me. Today is a good day!

So there you have it. We will continue to follow the progress of the next installment of MK and post the news as it unfolds.

It looks like Ian Fisher over at Shogun Gamer has conducted an exclusive interview with Vincent Proce, former Midway employee and the artistic genius behind the MK reboot art showed in an earlier update. A selection of questions from the interview:

Ian Fisher: What was the main inspiration behind the MK reboot concept art you did? Was there anything in particular like a film or comic that inspired you to take that direction or was it all natural and pure brilliance on your end?

Vincent Proce: Mortal Kombat is a part of history. The MK team is a pretty tight knit group and they have been very successful doing what they do with the MK franchise. I didn’t want to mess with that machine even if I could. Besides, there really wasn’t any opportunity to innovate within that group. So in my pitch I figured I would just take a completely new perspective on the game as a whole.

I had a burning desire to redesign the characters for a long time and finally, I just did it. I looked at it as an alternate view of the same universe, sort of like what the Marvels Ultimate Universe is within Marvels multiverse. I also wanted to reinvent the fighting game genre to possibly expand the MK fan base. I took the characters the way they originally appeared in MK 1. Their color, silhouette and weapons are essentially the same (with a few more deadly weapons added of course) and just redrew them the way I saw them in my head.

Ian Fisher: If Midway were to develop a new Mortal Kombat game, what would you focus on or change from previous installments?

Vincent Proce: I would make a spin off universe that reboots the entire franchise into a different branch. Everything would be rethought and adjusted, from how the arenas are laid out to how the fight mechanic works in relation to the controllers, to the back story of all the characters.

To read the interview in its entirety, click here.