The road to developing Legendary’s new live-action Street Fighter movie has been a bumpy one; the project lost directors Danny & Michael Philippou last summer when the filmmakers shifted to focus on Bring Her Back. Today, Deadline reports that a new director has taken the reins.
“Twisted Metal” and Bad Trip director Kitao Sakurai is officially taking over directorial duties from the Philippou brothers.
Sony Pictures previously announced that the new movie based on the popular video game franchise was set for theatrical release on March 20, 2026. With the new director in place, this date will likely hold but it’s still early yet.
Legendary is co-developing and producing the live-action feature with Capcom. Capcom’s popular franchise launched in 1987 with the arcade fighting game Street Fighter, followed by the even more popular Street Fighter II in 1991. The most recent edition, Street Fighter 6, was released in June 2023 and won the award for Best Fighting Game at the 2023 Game Awards.
The franchise’s extreme popularity yielded one of the first live-action video game adaptations ever with 1994’s Street Fighter, which starred Jean-Claude Van Damme as Colonel Guile, Raúl Juliá as the villainous M. Bison, Ming-Na Wen as Chun-Li, and Kylie Minogue as Cammy. The plot follows Guile leading a team of fighters to rescue hostages. Director Steven E. de Souza’s film arrived at the start of the video game adaptation trend that launched with 1993’s Super Mario Bros. film. The Street Fighter franchise received another live-action adaptation with 20th Century Fox’s Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li in 2009, starring Kristin Kreuk as Chun-Li.
With the success of films like Mortal Kombat, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Five Nights at Freddy’s and its upcoming sequel, video game adaptations are back in force. Also on the way is Christophe Gans’ Return to Silent Hill, though the continuation of the 2006 film remains currently undated.