Street Fighter hits theaters with poor reviews but audiences on its side
The live-action film starring Andrew Koji (Ryu), Noah Centineo (Ken) and Jason Momoa (Blanka) sits at 43% with critics and 78% with audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.
Street Fighter, the live-action film based on Capcom's fighting game series, opened in theaters on Friday, October 16, and heads into its first weekend with two very different report cards. On Rotten Tomatoes, as of Friday night, the Tomatometer stood at 43%, from 87 reviews with an average rating of 4.9 out of 10. The verified audience score was 78%, from more than 500 ratings. Both numbers will keep moving as more reviews come in.
Paramount Pictures distributes the film, which opened a day earlier in Brazil, on Thursday, October 15.
Who's in it
The story is set in 1993: Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) are pulled back into fighting when Chun-Li (Callina Liang) recruits them for a new World Warrior Tournament that hides a conspiracy. The cast leans on sports and music names:
- Jason Momoa as Blanka, the series' Brazilian fighter.
- David Dastmalchian as the villain M. Bison.
- WWE stars Roman Reigns (Akuma) and Cody Rhodes (Guile).
- Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson as Balrog, singer Orville Peck as Vega, Vidyut Jammwal as Dhalsim and comedian Andrew Schulz as Dan Hibiki.
Kitao Sakurai, of the series Twisted Metal, directs, having taken over after Danny and Michael Philippou (Talk to Me) left the project. Legendary, the studio behind Dune and Godzilla, produces.
A franchise that has never landed in theaters
This is the third live-action attempt at Street Fighter: before it came the 1994 film with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia, and 2009's Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, both panned by critics. The gap between critics and audiences has become familiar for video game adaptations, and what will decide the franchise's future on screen is this weekend's box office, which has not been reported yet.
