Mortal Kombat film producer files suit against Midway

With Midway reportedly looking to sell off its Mortal Kombat assets, one concerned party hopes to peer underneath the tent the beleaguered publisher has pitched inside the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and settle the sticky issue of intellectual property ownership. Film producer Lawrence Kasanoff and his company, Threshold Entertainment, have filed a suit in the hopes of eliciting judgment "declaring the existence and scope of its licenses, interests and intellectual property rights in Mortal Kombat-related intellectual property." In other words: "Hey, isn't that some of my stuff in this garage sale?"

It is the suit's assertion that the Mortal Kombat franchise is "far more a creation of Threshold and Kasanoff than of Midway," with Threshold's film adaptations and TV shows allegedly signifying more creative input than that of Midway, which was "almost entirely limited to the videogames." That's right! Bet you didn't know that Mortal Kombat was a "videogame" before it became an award-winning film franchise!

Threshold backs up its claims by pointing out the "minimal back-story and mythology" provided by the games, as well as the "flat, cookie-cutter characters" it had to use as a basis for its derivative works. Indeed, anybody who's seen "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation" is sure to agree that the 78 characters in that rich, compelling film -- including the cyborg and the lizard guy -- were so much more fleshed out right until they all died or something.

[Via GamePolitics]

Source -- Complaint (warning: PDF)

Reader Comments (29)

lol so basically they are claiming that they invented Mortal Kombat and therefor are entitled to $$

I invinted the phrase "don't go there"... where is my royalty check?

Too bad I didn't invent spell check...:-(

This guy's just hoping the judge, and anyone else involved knows jack-shit about the franchise in order to get a quick pay day. Maybe nobody will notice that the films drew heavily on the games, annihilation was like 2 and 3 rolled into one, and hilariously bad. I think Uwe Bowle ( forgive the spelling) could start a suit of his own over all the bad game-related films he's made.

I played Mortal Kombat! I am entitled to assets too!!!!!

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. Too bad it wasn't supposed to be a comedy. So many classic lines..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIt0VY7Yg2w

BRILLIANT!

I still weep for Johnny Cage. He had to have the record for shortest life of any main movie character in a sequel. Usually they kill people towards the end of a movie. Not in the first 4 seconds, lol.

Where's the SNL dudes when you need them? I'll try my best...

Really???

I think at this point, the above image should be Jaws eating Scorpion, and then throwing him up only to piss on the remains.

The plot thickens.....

man this guy has a set of balls claiming that he is the reason that MK is so popular, and he's also a total asshole cause now he chooses to sue right when midway is on its last legs, i hope this fucker loses and he just goes away, also i wonder what the real creators of MK think of this guy claiming the he is the creative power behind MK

The TV series Conquest was actually pretty decent.. But again, I don't think think any of these shows/movies were particularly popular, and they certainly didn't do anything for the characters, they were all heavily based on the the games story and didn't really tell us or make them do anything we didn't already know.

Finding out Noob Saibot was the original Sub-Zero in MK Deception for example, was far deeper than anything these movies did.

I don't think that I could get through Thursdays without Bullsh*t like this to lift my spirits.

Uh, 'Award Winning film franchise'?

The only one to get an award is the first Mortal Kombat in 1995, which got 1 award. For music. I hardly think that classifies as defining the IP.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113855/awards

Had no idea it won ANY awards. Doesn't seem like it's a significant one though. I've never heard of BMI.

It appears your sarcasm detector has malfunction, you should probably bring it in to the Sarcasm detector shop and get some repairs done. Unless it's under warranty, in which case you should probably get $ar-Corp to send you a box to ship it back to them in.

It wasn't sarcasm on the part of Joystiq, Kasanoff SERIOUSLY believes the MK movies he made were 'revolutionary'.

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/06/25/mortal-kombat-film-producer-sues-midway-over-ip-rights

for music? really? I thought the Lords of Acid guy did part of the score (under a different band name)...perhaps that was just for the trailers...

You know, they say that if you watch every MK movie and tv episodes in a row, a gray man will appear from the corner of your living room, scream "IHII" and uppercut you to death.

so he's the reason the movies sucked so bad?

::throws rock::

These guys are so retarded. I hope they get laughed out of court.

I wrote an erotic Mortal Kombat slash-fic revolving around Johnny Cage and Sub Zero, but I had no backstory to flesh my characters out! Where's my money, Midway?

While we're on the subject, where's YOUR money, Midway?

I've never seen such a slow pitch for a webcomic before. Jesus christ, their heads have got to be completely submerged in their own ass by now.

So one more shark swims up to take a bite out of Midway's corpse.

Looks like we're gonna need a bigger shark.

Smile, you son of a bitch...

maybe they're talking about the first film. The one that didn't suck ass and actually had some good fight scenes

This is obviously a cash grab. If this goes through, any movie studio that's made a game movie can sue because they "fleshed out the characters".

The penalty for filing frivolous, insubstantial lawsuits that do nothing but waste peoples' time should be CASTRATION. Maybe then we'd see less of this kind of bullshit.

Mortal Kombat film producer files suit against Midway

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