The new Street Fighter movie gets a release date, but no directors nor writers are officially attached
That we know of, at least.
Last year, we learned that Capcom and Legendary Pictures had teamed up to develop a new live-action Street Fighter movie, and Talk to Me directors Danny and Michael Philippou were promptly attached to it. Now, the filmmakers have just departed the project due to scheduling issues, but that isn't stopping distributor Sony Pictures from setting a tentative release date anyway.
The news dropped on June 27 through an official update sent to sites such as IGN that confirmed the movie is coming to theaters (at least in the US) on March 20, 2026. While this may indicate the movie is moving full steam ahead regardless of the recent creative shakeup, should we get even remotely excited without a director or even a writer officially on board?
Legendary Pictures is currently on a roll, with both Dune: Part Two and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire among the best performers of 2024 so far at the box office, and resonating with critics and mainstream audiences alike. It's also important to highlight it's the studio behind some of most decent big-screen video game adaptations we've received so far: Duncan Jones' Warcraft and the highly charming Pokémon: Detective Pikachu movie. With video games 100% set now as Hollywood's next gigantic obsession when it comes to franchise-building, can the new Street Fighter hope to capture some of that energy and improve upon those results?
While Legendary appears to have the right mindset, it all comes down to the creatives behind the wheel, and that starts with the writers, who are nowhere to be seen. Mind you, Legendary surely has someone writing a script as we speak, or else a release date wouldn't have been set. Still, it's weird to make that commitment when your movie looks like it's stuck in development hell from the outside. We're expecting the powers that be to pounce on another director (or duo) as soon as possible if production needs to start sooner rather than later, but the secrecy around it so far is worrying, and just letting fans know who's penning the script would go a long way towards generating some buzz.
If the early 2026 release window sticks, the new big-screen take on the property would arrive at the perfect time, as the games are experiencing a new surge in mainstream popularity thanks to Street Fighter 6's more approachable (yet tryhard-friendly) systems and strong post-launch support; of course, we're expecting the traditional super-duper iteration to arrive at some point as well.
Capcom might also be interested in getting the new movie off the ground as soon as possible for simpler reasons, as the original Street Fighter movie (1994) is still generating decent money for the company despite not being considered very good by most people on this Earth. And no, we never talk about that Chun-Li-led one from the 2000s.