Legendary Acquires Film and TV Rights to Street Fighter

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Image: Universal Pictures

“I’m going to kick that son-of-a-bitch Bison’s ass so hard…that the next Bison wannabe is gonna feel it!” This is probably the exact moment where moviegoers vowed never to watch a live-action Street Fighter movie again, but it looks like another one could finally be happening, as Legendary has acquired the film and TV rights to Capcom’s leading fighting game franchise. According to sources with Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter, the studio is planning to work closely with Capcom on future projects, and while it’s unclear whether anything is in development right now, critics say that it shouldn’t be too hard to produce something that’s better than the 1994 feature with Jean-Claude Van Damme (Guile) and Raul Julia (Bison), which has been ridiculed over the years for quirks that include Bison Dollars and a ridiculous-looking Blanka. Van Damme confessed in 2012 that he slept with Kylie Minogue (Cammy) while he was in Thailand shooting Street Fighter, describing it as “beautiful lovemaking.”

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Hollywood has made moves on Street Fighter in the past, with Universal releasing an ill-fated 1994 film that starred Jean-Claude Van Damme as Col. Guile and featured a cast including Kylie Minogue, Ming-Na Wen and the late Raul Julia. More than a decade later, 20th Century Fox released Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009), which starred Kristin Kreuk in the title role. Like its predecessor, it was a commercial and critical bomb. An assortment of animated adaptations have also made their way to the screen.

Legendary, which has a film distribution deal with Sony, has Dune: Part Two due out Nov. 3. Its deal for Street Fighter comes as video game adaptations have found success in recent years, with Paramount’s Sonic films, Sony’s Uncharted and HBO’s The Last of Us all cutting through to various degrees. And on Friday, Universal will try its luck with The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the first time in 30 years that gaming giant Nintendo has teamed with a Hollywood studio to put one of its prized properties on the big screen.

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Tsing Mui
News poster at The FPS Review.

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