Branding, Culture, Politics, and Everything in Between

Now this is interesting. Apparently, an 8 minute Mortal Kombat short film has been made just to convince Warner Brothers (the studio who holds the franchise’s rights) to make a reboot of it.

The previous Mortal Kombat movies were for the most part true to the games and a bit on the light side. But this short movie is nothing if dark. See, for example, their version of the character “Reptile”:

The idea of shooting test and sample footage of a potential movie project for studio heads is of course not new (personal favorite, Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones). But including consumers in this decision making process definitely is. As you may have guessed, the clip was posted on YouTube and other video sharing sites. The clip has already gone viral and is serving as a great way for the producers to get some immediate fan reactions from the video comments to throw at the studio brass. I’ve skimmed through some of the comments, and the response seems for the most part very positive. There are also a lot of great observations, reactions and other utterances that should prove invaluable if the movie moves to production. I personally hope the movie gets made.

But the bigger question is, of course, will we be seeing more of these short movie “probes” for movie ideas? It’s something that definitely has potential and is very “co-creative”. But also could spell disaster if used the wrong way. Nobody likes cultural works made by committee, for one. You need to find a balance between consumer engagement and artistic authorship.

Here’s the whole short film: