‘Street Fighter’ Movie Pulled from Release Calendar

Following the exit of the Philippou Brothers (Talk to Me) as directors in June 2024, despite Sony reserving Mar. 20, 2026 as a release date, news surrounding the film adaptation of Street Fighter went quiet. Then, in Feb. 2025, a new director was announced — Kitao Sakurai (The Eric Andre Show, The Passage). It was a bold and exciting update and one which has now been trampled upon with the news that Sony Pictures has completely pulled Street Fighter from its release calendar for now, removing it from that 2026 release date. Sorry, Street Fighter fans. K.O. indeed.

It was back in April 2023 that Legendary announced they had acquired the film rights to Street Fighter, a series of games that has sold over 55 million copies globally. Soon after, twin Australian filmmakers, Danny and Michael Philippou, were in talks to direct, a move that was inspiring to say the least. In fact, the duo directed a funny sketch video called Real Life Street Fighter, which was a promotional piece for the Street Fighter: Resurrection web series on Machinima. They left within a year due to scheduling conflicts as their next immediate film was Bring Her Back, and Legendary and Capcom didn’t seem to want to wait.

The Street Fighter video game series began in 1987 as a popular fighting game. The sequel in 1991 really took things up a notch, offering gamers a chance to choose different characters and was a huge hit. Without Street Fighter, there wouldn’t be Mortal Kombat. The most recent game, Street Fighter 6, came out in 2023, right around the time of the announcement of the new film by Legendary.

There Have Been Other Film Adaptations of ‘Street Fighter’

While there have been two web series in the last several years, including Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist (2014) and Resurrections (2016), the video game can count on one hand the number of film adaptations. Back in 1994, Die Hard screenwriter Steven E. de Souza wrote and directed the first film version that starred Jean-Claude Van Damme as Colonel Guile, the late, great Raul Julia as Bison, Kylie Minogue as Cammy, and Ming-Na Wen as Chun-Li. It opened around Christmas and ultimately made $99 million on a $35 million production budget; not a bust, but not good enough for a sequel. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a terrible 11% critical and 20% audience rating.

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In 2009, the world wasn’t quite prepared for the atrocity known as Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, which featured Kristin Kreuk as Chun-Li, Neal McDonough as Bison, and Michael Clarke Duncan as Balrog. The film was a complete disaster at both the box office and with critics and audiences. It made a pathetic $12.7 million at the worldwide box office and currently sits at 3% critical and 12% audience on RT. In fact, arguably the only video game adaptations that are as bad or worse than this and the 1994 film are Double Dragon (which also opened in 1994) and the first Super Mario Bros. film (1993).