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Midway Games loss is Warner Bros. Pictures big gain.  Variety is reporting that for a mere $33 million dollars, the movie studio has bought the bankrupt Midway after a judge cleared the way for the sale. Objections over intellectual property rights had been raised by Threshold Entertainment, the company that produced the two feature length Mortal Kombat films and Tigon Films a production company founded by action star Vin Diesel. Tigon and Midway had collaborated on “Wheelman,” a video game starring Diesel.

Last Wednesday the judge said the objections had been resolved and the sale to Warner Bros. was cleared. As Warner was the only bidder their 33 million dollar offer was accepted.

Among these assets are the popular franchises “Mortal Kombat”, “Spy Hunter”, “Space Invaders”, “Pac-Man”, “Rampage” and “Joust”.

The demise of the Chicago based company marks the end of thirty plus years of video game development. Midway, which was one of the first companies to manufacture video games, declared bankruptcy earlier this year. This left the franchises without a home and Warner Bros. was more than happy to swoop in and get a bargain.

Warner Bros. only appears to have interest in developing the games into films. they didn’t buy the development studios so they clearly have no intention of continuing the games as video games. The game Spy Hunter has been in development as a film and Mortal Kombat has waiting to be re-launched.

Which one of these video game franchises do you think would make the best film?