Mortal Kombat: Legacy is an American web series adapted from the Mortal Kombat video game franchise. It debuted on Machinima.com's YouTube channel on April 11, 2011. The second season was released in its entirety on September 26, 2013.
The show's premise originated with director Kevin Tancharoen's short film, Mortal Kombat: Rebirth (2010), which portrayed the background to the original game's story, albeit in more grounded fashion. Seeking the green-light from the studio for production on a re-imagined Mortal Kombat film, he submitted the concept to Warner Bros. Pictures after having presented it to both Midway Games (Warner purchased Mortal Kombat and other assets from the original owners of the property in 2009) and New Line Cinema (the original Mortal Kombat film rights holder became a division/label of the larger studio in 2008), which declined to back the film, despite the attention and positive fan reception. Instead Tancharoen got the go-ahead to shoot the web series.
Plot
The first season of Mortal Kombat: Legacy is a prequel to the original game, explaining the background stories of several characters from the series and demonstrating their reasons for participating in the upcoming tenth Mortal Kombat tournament on which the first game was based. The episodes are nonlinear with minimal continuity and each devoted to the story of a specific character or characters. The second season covers the tournament itself.
Cast
Episodes
Production
Conception
On June 8, 2010, Mortal Kombat: Rebirth surfaced on YouTube amid confusion about its origins and intentions. Kevin Tancharoen said he'd been thinking about a Mortal Kombat reboot for some time, and when the technology became available to him, he felt the time was right to make a short film. Tancharoen wrote and directed the film over a weekend without any studio involvement. With help from friends and colleagues and a $7,500 budget, the film was completed in two months. Before submitting the film to Warner Bros., Tancharoen intended to privately upload the short to YouTube to gauge the response of a colleague. He accidentally made it available to the general public, whom quickly voiced an overwhelmingly positive response.
Tancharoen noted the positive fan response and realized the advantage of social networking in helping small-time directors gain a following to take to film studio executives. He met with Warner Bros. executives, who stopped short of green-lighting a major motion picture, but agreed to fund a web series based on the Mortal Kombat franchise. The final step was convincing Ed Boon, co-creator of the franchise and executive producer at NetherRealm Studios, who had just produced the latest video game installment, to agree to the series. Boon was impressed with Mortal Kombat: Rebirth, but not entirely sold on Tancharoen's re-imagined vision. After he met with Tancharoen, Boon was surprised by his enthusiasm for the franchise and quickly offered his support.
Development
Season 1 development
Mortal Kombat: Legacy is produced by Warner Bros. Digital Distribution, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Warner Premiere. Tancharoen, Lance Sloane and Tim Carter serve as producers. It consists of nine 8-12 minute episodes, each written by Tancharoen and Spartacus: Blood and Sand writers Todd Helbing and Aaron Helbing, with Tancharoen directing. Larnell Stovall, who worked with Tancharoen on Rebirth, is the stunt coordinator. The series was filmed in Vancouver in February and March, with Tancharoen tweeting daily updates of their progress. Post-production began in March and continued alongside release. Visual effects were handled by Goldtooth Creative Agency.