Midway sued by movie producer over Mortal Kombat IP rights |
I kinda feel bad for Midway. They just can't get a break. After getting a US$ 33M bid from Warner last month, here comes another lawsuit that could make the Warner deal fall through.
GamePolitics is reporting that Lawrence Kasanoff, the guy behind the Mortal Kombat movies, TV show and animated series, is suing Midway in order to preserve his IP rights including copyrights to certain MK series characters.
He also wants to retain rights to create derivative film and TV projects based on the fighting game series. In short, he wants to be able to keep milking the hell out of the franchise. Kasanoff also claims that it wasn't Midway who made the series and its characters popular, it was him all along:
In 1993, Kasanoff visited Midway... with an idea to launch the Mortal Kombat concept in a totally new direction. Specifically, Kasanoff proposed to develop... a full feature-length motion picture, a television series, and other productions. Midway was initially skeptical, as Kasanoff's idea was revolutionary at the time...
The Mortal Kombat series, as it stands today, is far more a creation of Threshold and Kasanoff than of Midway. Midway's creative input was almost entirely limited to the videogames. On their own, the videogames provided only minimal back-story and mythology, and only flat, "stock" characters... Kasanoff and Threshold were responsible for virtually all of the creative input that went into turning the videogame concept into a multimedia enterprise.
I guess he forgot about the comics.
Related articles:
Via GamePolitics
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Comments [refresh]
Kasanoff is a greedy bastard. So he says that he made MK famous?? What a joke, aside from the first movie, which was kinda decent everything else was crap, nothing else. MK had been famous long before the first movie even came out!
Wow, everybody's getting sued. I really do get annoyed over these money-hungry commoners who try to sue anyone over anything.
Sorry Kasanoff....but the first movie was *OK* and everything after that was total crap and not even worth watching.
Your movies and TV series did F*CK ALL to help the Mortal Kombat brand......the movies and TV series and crappy book and comics were all after thoughts to the VIDEO GAME. Also you don't see anyone calling for another MK movie or TV Series, but we sure as hell would love another GOOD video game....Kasanoff....***** you buddy
The whole text is 100% lie and we the fans know the truth, this is pathetic
What a douche.
and here i am, thinking all the news stories, and parent protests of it, was to blame... =\
there was a TV show? jk
Midway should sue the pants off of him for making those awful movies.
Are they serious? no really I mean it, what tha heck are these guys talking about? these movies were awful and halfassed. If people actually saw those movies it was because these had the Mortal Kombat name in it, not because these were any good.
of the second movie was the introduction.. Right away: MORTAL KOMBAT!! then BAM right into the song.. BEST part. I hope the next movie starts like that
hes not your buddy, friend!
Actually there is a new MK movie coming out, supposed to come out this year too, unless it's been canned.
The ONLY good part about the second movie was the end credits.
i'm gonna sue you for saying that
that's harsh Solid that's harsh! LOL
even the credits sucked
Mortal kombat was good till they came out with mortal kombat trilogy just give me a nice remake of killer insticnt and I'm good
Kasanoff is being greedy because he sees that Warner bought out Midway, he wants Mortal Kombat for himself.
Kasanoff only produced the movies and TV show, he doesn't own Mortal Kombat, Midway owns Mortal Kombat.
This guy has an ego, he thinks that he made the series popular. He is just an egotistical bastard who wants to sue because he thinks that he has a case.