Street Fighter Wins the Box Office With a $31 Million Opening

Street Fighter opened at No. 1 with $31 million domestic, according to JoBlo. The film added about $20 million internationally for a worldwide opening of about $51 million.

The result lands inside the $30 million to $40 million range Box Office Pro projected, and JoBlo calls it a solid but unspectacular win. Critics were split, as we reported ahead of the opening. Moviefone lists a review score of 40 and an audience score of 63.

How the Opening Played Out

The Paramount and Legendary release played in 3,575 theaters in the United States and Canada, which works out to a per-theater average of roughly $8,671, according to Box Office Pro. Thursday previews brought in about $4 million, and the film earned between $12.5 million and $13 million on its first full day, per TheWrap and Fightful. Sales settled into a $31 million three-day total by Sunday.

Internationally, the adaptation of Capcom’s fighting game franchise earned about $20.1 million across 65 markets, according to Xinhua, bringing the global opening to $51.1 million. Kitao Sakurai directed the film, and the cast includes 50 Cent as Balrog along with several names from professional wrestling, including Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes.

The Rest of the Weekend Chart

You Can See Everything opened second with $15 million from 855 locations, per JoBlo. Other Mommy followed with $8.35 million, down 70%, for a $44.85 million domestic total. Whalefall opened with $8 million, and Sense and Sensibility opened with $7.25 million. Moviefone’s earlier estimates put these films slightly lower.

The Associated Press listed Verity in sixth place with $6.2 million and Resident Evil in seventh with $5.5 million. The weekend’s biggest surprise was not the winner. You Can See Everything, an A24 documentary of about three hours from Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, drew crowds from a fraction of the screens used by the wide releases. Deadline called its debut easily the second-best opening ever for a documentary, behind only Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004.

Reviews and Audience Reaction

Reception for Street Fighter has been divided. Moviefone lists a review score of 40 and an audience score of 63, while Wrestling Headlines reported a 41% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes against a 79% audience score. That gap suggests fans of the games and of the wrestlers in the cast responded more warmly than professional reviewers did, which is a common pattern for video game adaptations aimed at an existing fan base.

Expectations and the Budget Question

Context matters when judging the $31 million figure. Bleeding Cool noted that the opening came in on the lower end of expectations and below the debut of Mortal Kombat II in May, adding that video game films have had an up-and-down year at the box office. Ringside News reported that the early $31 million projection was lighter than Paramount had originally hoped.

Techloy reported that the production budget has been placed anywhere from $82 million to more than $100 million, which means the film will need strong word of mouth and a healthy international run to turn a profit. The opening is still a clear improvement on the franchise’s last big-screen outing, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, which finished with just $8.7 million in total domestic gross in 2009, according to Rotten Tomatoes.

The weekend also reflected a crowded marketplace. Three other new releases, You Can See Everything, Whalefall and Sense and Sensibility, opened alongside Street Fighter, and holdovers such as Other Mommy, which debuted with $27.8 million a week earlier, were still collecting sizable sums. Splitting the audience across so many titles kept every film below the totals studios usually hope for in mid-October, and it explains why a $31 million debut was enough to claim first place without much margin for the competition to close.

Digger Falls Out of the Top 10

Tom Cruise’s Digger fell out of the top 10 with $920,000, down 71%, for a $17 million domestic total, according to JoBlo. Warner Bros. has been pulling the film from theaters, as we reported.

What Comes Next

The second weekend will show whether Street Fighter can hold its audience. Films with a large fan-driven first day often drop sharply the following week, and the gap between the critic and audience scores will be tested by how many viewers recommend it. With You Can See Everything expanding its reach and several other releases competing for the same moviegoers, the film will have to hold its screens through the weeks ahead to climb toward its production costs.