Street Fighter Movie Sets New Franchise Box Office Record

19 Oct at 21:58 Comment Views: 1

For nearly 40 years and across six mainline entries, plus dozens of spinoffs and rereleases, Street Fighter has been one of gaming’s most enduring franchises. Adaptations of its magical martial arts source material have proven tricky, though. Earlier attempts drew mixed reactions from fans and critics.

Capcom and Legendary’s highly anticipated new Street Fighter movie opened in theaters this weekend. It is the franchise’s third live-action adaptation. The result is dividing fans again, but the film has still set a new franchise record and easily passed its predecessors.

Street Fighter opened on Oct. 16, and its first weekend is being viewed as a success. According to BoxOfficeMojo, it earned $31 million domestically. That puts it well ahead of the weekend’s other debuts: Nathan Fielder’s documentary You Can See Everything earned $15 million, and Austin Abrams’ trapped-in-a-whale survival movie Whalefall earned just $8 million.

The biggest gap shows up against earlier adaptations. The 1994 Street Fighter, which starred Jean Claude Van Damme as Guile, opened to $6.8 million domestically and finished with $33 million. Its worldwide theatrical gross was $99 million, according to BoxOfficeMojo. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, the 2010 adaptation starring Kristin Kreuk in the title role, fared far worse. It opened to just $4.7 million domestically and grossed only $12.7 million worldwide. The new Street Fighter beat the opening weekends of the previous two live-action films combined.

Street Fighter is a hit with fans

None of the live-action Street Fighter films has won over critics, but the latest one is at least finding favor with fans. After opening weekend, Street Fighter (2026) has a 79% Rotten Tomatoes audience score, known as the Popcornmeter. By comparison, 1994’s Street Fighter has a 20% Popcornmeter, and The Legend of Chun-Li has an even lower 18% audience score.

The new film still has a long way to go to cover its $82 million budget. It is also drawing unflattering comparisons to the box office of rival fighting game adaptation Mortal Kombat 2 from earlier this year. Warner Bros.’ MK2 opened to $38.5 million domestically and ultimately grossed $129 million. Against an $80 million budget, that counted as an underperformance. We’ll see whether the Street Fighter 2 teased at the end of the new Street Fighter comes to pass.

Kitao Sakurai directed and co-wrote Street Fighter. Andrew Koji stars as Ryu, Noah Centineo as Ken Masters and Callina Liang as Chun-Li. The rest of the cast includes: