Mortal Komabt Rebirth

Warner Bros. today announced the development of a live-action digital short series based on the best-selling Mortal Kombat videogame franchise.

The series will be directed by Kevin Tancharoen who is known for his popular unofficial fan short Mortal Kombat: Rebirth which hit the web last year and garnered over 10 million views online, and will coincide with the upcoming Mortal Kombat videogame.

The action-packed, digital series will take gamers deep into the history of warriors they know and love such as Scorpion, Johnny Cage and Liu Kang. Shooting for the digital series will take place in Vancouver starting in early February.

Since its debut in 1992, the rabidly popular Mortal Kombat videogame has spawned no fewer than four complete arcade games, 10 console-based videogame titles, two movies, two television series and an animated prequel. The new Mortal Kombat game marks a triumphant return to the series’ mature presentation and a reinvention of its classic 2D fighting mechanic. Driven by an all new graphics engine, the fan favorite Fatality is back and presented in more gory detail than ever before. In addition, Mortal Kombat introduces a number of new game-play features including tag team and a deep story mode. Mortal Kombat is being developed by NetherRealm Studios, led by Mortal Kombat creator and creative director Ed Boon and will hit the streets on April 19 of this year for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 consoles.

Curiously, this recent Rebirth announcement was not accompanied by any further word on the state of Mortal Kombat 3 which the studio announced last year was in the hopper to eventually be ready for theaters.

Here's the Mortal Kombat: Rebirth short: