Director Kevin Tancharoen is planning to film nine episodes, running between seven and ten minutes each, for the live-action Mortal Kombat series that was announced by Warner Bros. earlier this month. In an interview with Gamasutra, Tancharoen says that the sure-to-be-violent vignettes will delve into the spiky backgrounds of Mortal Kombat's characters, with more prominent fixtures (like Scorpion) possibly warranting two-part stories. Shooting is scheduled to begin in Vancouver this February.

Tancharoen gained the attention of franchise fans and the media after the release of test footage from his Mortal Kombat: Rebirth, a gritty, modernized spin that ditched cross-dimensional tournaments, goateed sorcerers and hell ninjas for something even more outlandish: a guy eating refrigerated heads and an undercover agent who used to be a movie star.

Wait -- make that the unintentional release of the Rebirth test footage. "It was still in its rough phase, but I couldn't send a 2GB file over email, so my friend said I could create a private page on YouTube and sent [sic] it to him to review," Tancharoen recalls. "It turns out it wasn't that private."