In the summer of 2010, a Michael Jai White-starring short film set in the “Mortal Kombat” video game universe hit the Internet. Nobody really knew what it was at first, but it ended up being a proof of concept short that Kevin Tancharoen directed in order to prove that there was room for a new Mortal Kombat movie that would take a different approach than New Line’s original take on the material. That short has since become known as Mortal Kombat: Rebirth, and though it didn’t immediately land Tancharoen an offer to do a full-length film, it did garner him some additional studio change from Warner Bros. to fund an entire series of web shorts, which were called Mortal Kombat: Legacy. I guess they were another toe dipped in the water to see if there was any interest in a new series of Mortal Kombat films. Stretching the original short out to a series of them had mixed results in this reviewer’s eyes, but the reaction to them must have been positive and large enough to prove something to someone, because it’s looking like Tancharoen is finally going to get to direct his feature. Heat Vision is reporting that New Line is picking up this ball and running with it, as they’ve hired Tancharoen and his writerOren Uziel to come and make a new feature-length Mortal Kombat for them. New Line’s last attempt at a full length Mortal Kombat movie was 1997’s Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, which was pretty much a giant bomb.

New Line and Mandaly Pictures are the heroes the day because they announced through Variety that they plan to make Furry Friday, the exact movie that you’re imagining right now in your mind based on the pun title. A dog and a cat swap bodies. It’s live-action. It cannot be a bad idea. Mandaly producer (and Oscar winner) Cathy Schulman’s script is getting a rewrite from writer David H. Steinberg. It’s an interesting choice considering that much of his work has been in the teenage world of American Pie 2 and the slightly out of teenage world of Slackers (which remains an underrated gem). He’s also the writer responsible for the forthcoming Puss in Boots movie. To reiterate: this is a movie about a dog and a cat switching bodies. You may scoff, but to the right is photographic proof that live-action animal movies can work incredibly well. Furry Friday will undoubtedly be a family-focused flick, and there’s nothing wrong with that. At the very least, we should be glad they aren’t trying to pun off of the Schulman-produced Darfur Now. Seriously. It would be so easy. They must have at least had a meeting about it.

Brendan Fraser was threatening to leave the production of Journey 2: The Mysterious Island even before his latest family friendly flick fell flat, but now that he’s gone for good (since director Eric Brevig left to deliver this magnum opus), the production has decided to go to the man most well known for children’s movies: The Rock. Dwayne Johnson has officially been named as the replacement to star in the film. It’s a great marketing tactic considering his Sesame street cred, and it probably won’t hurt the creative integrity in anyway unless they run out of ways to throw yo-yos at the screen (in 3D!). Josh Hutcherson is reprising his role (as, most likely, a Plan B to missing out on Spider-Man), and as with the first, the movie will take Jules Verne’s work and weave it into a story that mirrors the plot to his novel “The Mysterious Island.” [Cinematical]

With a heavy hit at the box office, we might be seeing a glove full of knives coming at us in 3D soon.

New Line films have recently optioned the screenplay “Dan Mintner: Bad Ass for Hire” by writer Chad Kultgen (Average American Male).