Last year Mortal Kombat fans were treated to a nine-episode long web series entitled Mortal Kombat: Legacy, which not only dove into several interesting interpretations of the video games’ lore, but may have effectively marketed the game to return to the big screen in full-length feature form. Now the series’ director Kevin Tancharoen, intends to follow up the with a second season next year.
Mortal Kombat: Legacy 2 (as it is currently dubbed) will apparently delve into character back stories again, much like the first season, but some of the characters and cast have changed for this second run. Johnny Cage returns but with Casper Van Dien replacing Matt Mullins in the role. Scorpion is also back with Ian Anthony Dale at the reigns, with newer faces such as Harry Shum, Jr. as Kung Lao and Brian Tee as Lui Kang joining in the action.
Perhaps the biggest and arguably most exciting cast change, is the addition of Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa as the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung; a role he last played in the original 1995 Mortal Kombat film.
According to a Warner Bros. press release, the second season is currently in production and slated for release on the Machinima Youtube channel in mid-2013. There will be a short clip of the series to premiere on February 17 at the 2013 Streamy Awards.
Mortal Kombat: Legacy was an initial answer to a hyper realistic ten-minute-long Mortal Kombat: Rebirth clip directed by Tancharoen in 2010. Once the clip hit Youtube, it amassed hundreds of views and sparked questions as to whether or not the video game franchise would take another stab at the silver screen. Shortly after the successful run of Legacy, it was announced that Tancharoen was hired on by New Line to take on a big-screen adaptation of the video game franchise.
