‘Street Fighter’ Falls Hard In Its Second Weekend

Street Fighter, which opened at No. 1 last weekend, is falling steeply in its second weekend, and the trade estimates do not agree on how steeply. JoBlo and Dark Horizons both estimate a drop of about 79 percent, to roughly $9.5 million for the three days. TheWrap estimates a 73 percent drop, to $8.4 million, with a domestic total of $46.7 million after ten days. The figures are Saturday estimates; final numbers are due Monday.

The opening set the terms for the fall. The film, from Paramount, Legendary and Capcom, opened on Friday, October 16, in 3,575 theaters and finished its first weekend with $30.8 million in domestic sales — Box Office Mojo’s actual count was $30,775,377 — plus $20.1 million overseas, for a worldwide start of about $50.9 million. That was a franchise record, but it landed below the forecasts attached to it before release: Deadline reported that a $70 million worldwide opening had been hoped for, and Paramount had expected a domestic start in the mid-$30 millions.

The weekdays between the two weekends showed the split in the audience. On Monday the film took in about $1.9 million, a drop of 73 percent from Sunday, and lost the daily No. 1 position to You Can See Everything, A24’s Elizabeth Holmes documentary, which grossed about $2.5 million that day from 855 theaters — reported as the first film this century to top the daily chart while playing in fewer than 1,000. On Tuesday, Street Fighter rose 52.6 percent to $2.9 million, retook the top spot, and passed the entire $33 million domestic run of the 1994 Street Fighter film in five days; its domestic total stood at $35.5 million after Tuesday.

The film is directed by Kitao Sakurai and adapts Capcom’s fighting-game series, the one whose Street Fighter II became the defining arcade game of the early 1990s. Andrew Koji plays Ryu, Noah Centineo plays Ken and Callina Liang plays Chun-Li. David Dastmalchian plays the villain M. Bison, Jason Momoa plays Blanka, and the cast is filled out with professional wrestlers Roman Reigns as Akuma and Cody Rhodes as Guile, the rapper 50 Cent as Balrog and the singer Orville Peck as Vega. Its reported net production cost is $82 million, the figure TheWrap sets against the $46.7 million domestic total in its second-weekend estimate.

Video-game films have been measured against each other all year, and the two closest points of comparison are on the record. Mortal Kombat II opened at $38.5 million earlier this year and finished with $129.6 million worldwide. Masters of the Universe opened at $29.4 million in June and finished with $113.8 million worldwide. Street Fighter opened between them, and its second-weekend estimates — whether $9.5 million or $8.4 million — place its drop beyond the usual second-weekend range for the genre.

What remains is arithmetic and time. At TheWrap’s estimate, the film ends its second weekend with $46.7 million at home against a reported $82 million production budget, before marketing costs and before the overseas total is counted in full. A third weekend, the size of its international finish, and its performance after theaters will decide where it lands next to the two films it has been compared with since before it opened.

Sources: JoBlo; Dark Horizons; TheWrap; Box Office Mojo; Deadline.