When Mortal Kombat: Legacy debuted in 2011, it sparked hope among filmmakers worldwide. After all, Kevin Tancharoen had shot his shot a year earlier with the short fan film Mortal Kombat: Rebirth.
In 2010, Tancharoen’s goal was simple: He wanted Warner Bros. to watch his more realistic take on the franchise and hand him the keys to the MK film kingdom. Warner Bros. said no. Instead, it offered Tancharoen an opportunity to do something else: create a web series consisting of bite-sized episodes, which would become Mortal Kombat: Legacy.
The first season of the show takes place before the famous tournament, providing an origin story for the characters: Jax, Sonya, Kano, Johnny Cage, Kitana, Mileena, Raiden, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Cyrax, and Sektor. Tancharoen secured the services of some notable actors, as Michael Jai White, Jeri Ryan, Darren Shahlavi, and Ian Anthony Dale lent their talents for the roles of Jax, Sonya, Kano, and Scorpion respectively, while he also brought in martial artist-turned-actor Matt Mullins as Johnny and various other TV actors and stunt performers in key parts.
For fans who had been deprived of any live-action Mortal Kombat production since the end of the TV show Mortal Kombat: Conquest in 1999, Legacy was a fireball of excitement that was sorely needed. Sure, it wasn’t always a flawless victory, and you could see the limitations of Tancharoen’s budget in places, but the series captured the tone and spirit of the games rather well.
The second season of Mortal Kombat: Legacy raised the stakes in both production value and star power. Casper Van Dien replaced Mullins as Johnny, while Brian Tee and Mark Dacascos brought the heat as Liu Kang and Kung Lao respectively. The real coup, though, was securing the services of Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Shang Tsung – a role that he had made famous in Paul W. S. Anderson’s 1995 Mortal Kombat movie.
Mortal Kombat: Legacy turned out to be such a success that Warner Bros. reversed its decision and offered Tancharoen the chance to direct a live-action film. Tancharoen would work on the project for a while before departing; however, he did announce a third season of Legacy was in the works.
Now, this is where the story gets messy. Despite the third season being written and filmed, it was never released to the public. It was supposed to be released in 2016 with the title of Mortal Kombat: Generations, but Warner Bros. ghosted the fanbase entirely. As it turns out, it appears like everybody is under an NDA and not allowed to talk about it, hence most actors dodging the question when it’s brought up. We know, because we have asked too.
“Don’t forget it was supposed to help with the release of Mortal Kombat X,” director Garrett Warren told Realm Kast. “So it had a lot of characters that were coming out with Mortal Kombat X. My unfortunate dilemma is that I’m not allowed to speak [because] I signed an NDA.”
Judging by some footage leaked by heroes in the community, Mortal Kombat: Generations would have seen the additions of Lewis Tan as Kung Jin, Eric Roberts as Bo’ Rai Cho, and Haley Lu Richardson as Cassie Cage. Tan would receive another shot in the franchise by being cast as Cole Young in the 2021 reboot movie, though.
The fact that nothing was said about the third season of Mortal Kombat: Legacy is yet another instance of Warner Bros. dropping the ball and disrespecting its audience. This shouldn’t be all too surprising considering how the studio scrapped Batgirl and other high-profile projects. That being said, the least it could have done was to announce something – anything, really.
If anything, Mortal Kombat: Legacy is a reminder of how most studios are completely clueless about what to do with their franchises when good fortune falls out of the sky and lands into their laps. Tancharoen’s pitch came out of nowhere, and it likely wasn’t what the studio had planned for the franchise then; however, rather than ride the wave of success until its eventual and natural conclusion, Warner Bros. decided to gut Legacy because of some dumb corporate decision. Now, there’s a completed series about one of the most popular video game franchises that sits inside a dusty vault and nobody will ever see it. Absolute muppetry.
RELATED: Casper Van Dien Calls for Warner Bros. to Release Mortal Kombat: Legacy Season 3
