Street Fighter won its opening weekend, but the victory came in softer than the industry expected. Paramount and Legendary's live-action take on Capcom's fighting game franchise debuted at No. 1 in North America, yet its worldwide start landed well below the roughly $70 million the film had been projected to reach.
The opening also leaves the film with real work to do. Street Fighter cost a reported $82 million to produce, co-financed by Legendary and Capcom, and films generally need to earn back at least double their production budget once marketing is factored in — a bar this debut does not clear in a single weekend.
The long game is not hopeless, though. Box Office Mojo's franchise records show the series has been here before: the 1994 Street Fighter, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, legged its way to $99.4 million worldwide, while 2009's Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li collapsed with just $12.7 million. The new film's $31 million domestic opening is already close to the $33.4 million the 1994 movie earned across its entire North American run.
Street Fighter's Opening Weekend by the Numbers
The debut was solid rather than spectacular, with premium screens doing much of the heavy lifting:
Domestic opening: $31 million from 3,575 theaters, good for No. 1 for the weekend
International opening: $20.1 million
Worldwide opening: $51.1 million (Sunday estimates)
Thursday previews: $4 million
Production budget: $82 million
CinemaScore: B-
Premium formats: IMAX and other premium screens made up 58% of the weekend gross
How Street Fighter Stacks Up Against 2026's Other Game Movies
Measured against this year's other fighting-game and video game adaptations, Street Fighter lands in the middle of the pack:
Mortal Kombat II opened higher in May with $38.5 million domestically, but cooled off to a $129.5 million worldwide finish
Zach Cregger's Resident Evil, September's other Capcom adaptation, opened to $60 million domestically and has gone on to gross more than $360 million worldwide
Street Fighter outgrossed three of the year's other video game movies — Exit 8, Iron Lung and Return to Silent Hill — in a single weekend
What Is Street Fighter movie about?
Directed by Kitao Sakurai, the film goes back to 1993, where estranged fighters Ryu and Ken Masters are pulled back into combat when Chun-Li recruits them for the next World Warrior Tournament. Behind the tournament sits a conspiracy that forces the two friends to face each other — and the demons of their past.
Andrew Koji stars as Ryu, opposite Noah Centineo as Ken Masters
Callina Liang plays Chun-Li, with Jason Momoa as Blanka and Orville Peck as Vega
The ensemble also includes Roman Reigns, 50 Cent and Cody Rhodes
The film's best hope now is word of mouth: audiences graded it far kinder than critics did, and it faces little direct action competition until the 20th anniversary re-release of V for Vendetta on November 1. It will have to do it without China, where Paramount does not hold distribution rights, leaning instead on markets like Mexico, Brazil, the UK and Australia. These figures are Sunday studio estimates, so the final weekend totals may shift slightly when actuals are reported.
