The new
This is an important question for the growth of the Street Fighter scene, especially after seeing the success of Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil adaptation.
I recently watched the new Resident Evil movie, and it was bloody, chaotic fun. What stood out to me was the video game-inspired elements that are often overlooked in other movie adaptations; small details like digging through drawers for shotgun ammo and giving us dark, shaky POVs of different rooms.
I wasn’t alone. Right now, it has made over $205.3 million at the global box office. I’d call this a huge success for a gory, goofy video game movie.
But even more importantly, IGN found that the success of the Resident Evil movie resulted in a massive increase in sales for both the Resident Evil 2 Remake and Resident Evil 4 Remake for PlayStation 5, by 64% and 54%, respectively. Over on Steam, the games saw an increase in sales by 11% and 14%. This happened around a week after the movie arrived in theaters.
Why these games? The movie takes place around the time of the Resident Evil 2 Remake. The movie made people curious.
Will Street Fighter see a boost in sales?
There’s no denying that there is a ton of hype surrounding the Street Fighter movie, but that’s largely been from fans of the series.
We’ve seen a few trailers and teasers that show it’s definitely inspired by the games, including popular moves and combos you’ll pull off in matches. There are also a lot of lore elements inspired by skins and storylines in the game. And like the Resident Evil movie, the Street Fighter movie is focused on the 1990’s plot from Street Fighter 2, the World Warrior Tournament and M. Bison as the main villain.
This would mean fans of the movie would possibly flock to older titles rather than Street Fighter 6. Although I feel they’d also wanna check that out if they want to get involved with the community.
We’re forgetting one important factor first: it has to be good. That’s what made Resident Evil inspire some new gamers.
Street Fighter hasn’t had a lot of success on the big screen. The 1994 film was widely considered a disaster, with critics frustrated by its confusing plot, lame martial arts fights, and its straying far too far from the video game characters and their lore. Rotten Tomatoes shows abysmal reviews from critics and fans alike. The Kansas City Star said on Rotten Tomato: “What do you expect from a film based on a video game? It’s loud, kinetic and largely incomprehensible.”
Although, it’s worth noting that the 1994 live action Street Fighter film still makes Capcom a lot of money on the regular, despite being critically panned.
I’d love to argue about that sweeping “video game movie” statement, but 2009’s The Legend of Chun-Li was even worse. Perhaps to escape the first film’s criticisms, this movie took itself way too seriously, but didn’t have the vibrant energy and fun action choreography to make it worthwhile. Instead of the goofiness of the 1994 film, this one had bad acting, guns instead of martial arts and just a generally boring vibe.
This time around, the Street Fighter movie seems to take a lot more inspiration from the games. It seems to really explore the game’s past lore and storylines and pays close attention to character detail. Right down to the thighs.
If it can really bring the vibes and excitement of a Street Fighter match into the movie theater, I’m sure there will be a lot of new players that want to check out what all the hype is about.
Street Fighter is coming to theaters everywhere on October 16th.
