Tekken movie hits US next year

Last month, Tekken series producer Katsuhiro Harada publicly distanced himself from the live-action feature film based on Namco's fighting franchise, calling it "terrible" on Twitter and saying he didn't want to talk about it. That endorsement aside, Anchor Bay Films today announced that it has acquired the distribution rights to release the film in the US, Australia, and New Zealand.

The film "will be released widely in the United States" next year, with Anchor Bay planning both theatrical and home video launches. No time frame was announced for Australia and New Zealand.

The Tekken film had been in the works since 2002, when production company Crystal Sky picked up the rights to it for a reported $60 million. After lying dormant for years, the project resurfaced in 2007, with director Dwight Little (Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid, Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home) at the helm.

The film features a number of familiar faces, including Cary-Hiroyuki Takagawa (who played Shang Tsung in the original Mortal Kombat) and Lateef Crowder (who played Baraka in the recent Mortal Kombat: Rebirth short). It also stars Gary Daniel, who has no apparent connection to Mortal Kombat but did star as Kenshiro in the live-action film based on the similarly violent Fist of the North Star.