Lawrence Kasanoff, the producer behind the Mortal Kombat movies, television show, and animated series has filed suit against Midway in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in order to make sure he retains series milking rights.
The complaint filed by Kasanoff's Threshold Entertainment seeks to protect the company from losing intellectual property rights to certain Mortal Kombat characters and the ability to create movies and television shows based on the series in the event of the sale of Midway assets to a third party, such as Warner Bros. The suit contends than no such protection is currently on record, and any sale occurring without such protections in place could result in the unjust losing of said rights.
The suit goes on to contend that it was Kasanoff who made the series into the brand it is today, taking the property and characters such as Liu Kang and Sonya blade far beyond the relative obscurity of arcades, delivering a household recognition that the series would have never seen otherwise.
In a way I suppose he is right. While those of us steeped in gaming would recognize those original digitized fighters anywhere, the movies did go a long way towards establishing the characters in mainstream culture.
If the suit is successful, it would suddenly make Midway assets a great deal less valuable to Warner Bros., perhaps halting the sale completely pending some sort of resolution. Check out the link below to view the full court document.
Kasanoff's Complaint Against Midway [Game Politics Document Dump - Main Article]