The new Street Fighter film has set an opening-weekend record for the fighting game franchise. Capcom and Legendary's adaptation opened on October 16 and earned $31 million domestically in its first weekend, according to BoxOfficeMojo data cited by Polygon.
That figure led the weekend's other debuts. Nathan Fielder's documentary You Can See Everything took $15 million, and the survival film Whalefall took $8 million.
Measured against the series' own history, the margin is wider. The 1994 Street Fighter film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile opened to $6.8 million domestically and finished its domestic run at $33 million, with a worldwide gross of $99 million. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, the 2010 adaptation starring Kristin Kreuk, opened to $4.7 million domestically and grossed $12.7 million worldwide. The new film's opening weekend exceeded both of those openings combined.
Audience scores and the budget
Polygon reported that the film holds a 79% Rotten Tomatoes audience score after its opening weekend, against 20% for the 1994 film and 18% for The Legend of Chun-Li. Critical reception for the new film has been mixed, as it was for both predecessors.
The film has further to go against its costs. Its budget is $82 million, so the opening weekend covers well under half of that figure. Polygon also set the result beside Mortal Kombat 2, which opened to $38.5 million domestically earlier this year and grossed $129 million against an $80 million budget, a performance the outlet characterized as below expectations.
Street Fighter was directed and co-written by Kitao Sakurai. Andrew Koji plays Ryu, Noah Centineo plays Ken Masters and Callina Liang plays Chun-Li. The cast also includes Joe Anoa'i as Akuma, David Dastmalchian as M. Bison, Cody Rhodes as Guile, Curtis Jackson as Balrog, Jason Momoa as Blanka, Vidyut Jammwal as Dhalsim, Mel Jarnson as Cammy, Orville Peck as Vega, Olivier Richters as Zangief, Hirooki Goto as E. Honda, Andrew Schulz as Dan Hibiki, Eric Andre as Don Sauvage, Rayna Vallandingham as Juli, Alexander Volkanovski as Joe and Kyle Mooney as Marvin. A sequel is teased at the end of the film.
