‘Street Fighter’ Movie Finds Kitao Sakurai As Its New Director
He replaces 'Talk to Me' directors Danny and Michael Philippou, who had departed last year
It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything from Legendary’s live-action Street Fighter film. Last we heard, the Sony-distributed adaptation of the Capcom video game franchise lost horror hit Talk to Me directors Danny and Michael Philippou but was assigned a March 20, 2026 release date. Now they have let in Kitao Sakurai, writer, director and executive producer of The Eric Andre Show.
Capcom is deeply involved with the adaptation, co-developing and co-producing with the film studio. Choosing Sakurai may have a lot to do with having video game adaptation experience in the form of Peacock’s Twisted Metal, starring Anthony Mackie and based on the demolition derby-based Playstation game series. He reteamed with Andre to co-write and direct the 2021 Netflix comedy Bad Trip, which also starred Tiffany Haddish, Michaela Conlin and Lil Rel Howery. He also serves as an executive producer of the second season of their series Beef and directed the pilot and subsequent episodes of the upcoming Amazon Prime Video series Butterfly starring Daniel Dae Kim.
Quite infamously, this is the franchise’s third attempt at feature film success. The 1994 film directed by Steven E. de Souza helped further tank the reputation of video game movies less than two years after the release of Super Mario Bros. It starred Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile, Raúl Juliá as M. Bison, and Ming-Na Wen as Chun-Li and saw Guile gather a group of fighters to help free a collection of kidnapped UN delegates. 2009’s Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li didn’t fare much better. Starring Smallville’s Kristin Kreuk as Chun-Li, the Arrowverse’s Neal McDonough as M. Bison, Chris Klein as Charlie Nash, and Michael Clarke Duncan as Balrog was probably more snubbed by fans, overshadowed as 20th Century Fox also released the despised Dragonball Evolution the same year. But now, video game adaptations are the thing. You know who’s there and what’s coming.
Launched in 1987, Street Fighter has sold more than 49 million units worldwide, becoming one of the highest-grossing video game franchises of all time, with well-spread sequels over the 36 years, as well as special editions and remakes. 1991’s second installment was the first to offer choices of playable characters and fighting techniques. The most recent game in the franchise, Street Fighter 6 was released on June 2, 2023, on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam. It even won fighting game of the year at that year’s Game Awards. The latter three entries in the series were released after hiatuses of 11, 8, and 7 years respectively.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter