Legendary Pictures may have pitted Godzilla vs. King Kong, but they just nabbed the rights to one of the most celebrated fighting games of all time.
IndieWire reports that Legendary Entertainment, the studio behind Godzilla and Dune, has now nabbed the rights for Capcom’s Street Fighter for live-action film and television adaptations. We don’t have any details of what project Legendary is going to make under the Street Fighter IP, but they can definitely go several directions; personally, I’m just hoping for an anime movie.
The last time Street Fighter got the movie treatment was in 2009 with Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li distributed by 20th Century Fox. The movie was a critical bomb, and before that, we got 1994’s Street Fighter, which also wasn’t a critical hit, but has since become a cult classic.
If anything, the only beloved Street Fighter properties have been animated, like Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie. Though I think a live-action direction is still possible, Legendary shouldn’t forget that there’s also potential for animated properties. I mean, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners essentially pumped life back into the franchise after its poor game launch.
There was also a series Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist, but it didn’t really get the international attention that a movie could:
With 2021’s Mortal Kombat not managing to be perfect, there’s a lot of room for Street Fighter to enter the movie arena with a fresh new take. I’m just hoping they embrace the campiness of the 90s version as compared to the weird cop thriller that 2009’s Chun-Li movie was aiming to be.
A Street Fighter movie has not yet been officially announced.
