Street Fighter Live-Action Adaptation Loses Talk to Me Filmmakers

The upcoming Street Fighter live adaptation has lost its directors. Danny and Michael Philippou, the filmmaking duo behind A24’s acclaimed Talk to Me, have exited the project. According to The Hollywood Reporter, scheduling conflicts are “partly to blame” for the brothers’ exit as Legendary (the studio behind the film) and Capcom did not want to wait for them to finish an upcoming project. The Philippou brothers’ next film, an A24 horror titled Bring Her Back and starring Sally Hawkins and Billy Barratt, begins filming in Australia this month.

News of the Phillipou siblings’ involvement in the upcoming video game adaptation circulated last year, and given their praised feature directorial effort Talk to Me, fans had reason to be excited. With Legendary and Capcom back on the hunt for a director, the wait is now on to see who will take the helm.

Understandably, Legendary and Capcom want to get the Street Fighter film moving forward as soon as possible, as video game adaptations have been having a moment, with The Last of Us gaining critical acclaim and receiving 24 Emmy nods, Arcane (based on League of Legends) having been praised for its animation, complex characters, and storytelling, and Sonic the Hedgehog and its 2022 sequel having grossed big at the box office.

Street Fighter Gets Another Shot at the Big Screen

Street Fighter

Release Date

December 23, 1994

Runtime

102

Tagline

Adventure is the name of the game

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Previous live-action adaptations of Street Fighter can serve as cautionary tales for Legendary and Capcom, as two previous films based on the popular video games failed to gain the favor of audiences and critics. A 1994 movie – titled Street Fighter – starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and written and directed by Steven E. de Souza, followed Van Damme’s Guile, as he leads a group of fighters to free kidnapped UN delegates. The video game franchise’s success (it remains one of the highest-grossing video game franchises of all time) translated to modest box office success for the film, as it grossed $99M at the box office (against a $35M budget). Unfortunately, the film didn’t receive a positive reception from audiences or critics.

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In 2009, Street Fighter:The Legend of Chun-Li (starring Kristin Kreuk as the titular character and directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak from a screenplay written by Justin Marks) was also panned by critics and viewers. The film follows Chun-Li on her quest for justice as she attempts to bring down the criminal organization that captured her father when she was a child.

While the Phillipou siblings’ departure from the Street Fighter movie may disappoint their fans, new projects are on the horizon. Before making their feature directorial release, they built a massive following of over 6.8 million subscribers with their popular YouTube channel, RackaRacka (which has been quiet for over 10 months). Following Talk to Me‘s success (the film quickly became A24’s highest-grossing horror flick), a sequel, titled Talk 2 Me, was announced. Talk 2 Me will be written by Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman and is set to be directed by Danny and Michael Philippou. Meanwhile, details about their next project, Bring Her Back, are scarce, but anticipation is high.