Following the exit of the Philippou Brothers, Bad Trip director Kitao Sakurai is reportedly in place to bring Capcom’s beloved Street Fighter franchise to the big screen.
Round Two: Fight! It looks like the second attempt to get Legendary and Capcom’s Street Fighter revival off the ground with a director is up and running. Back in June of this year, we covered a report which stated that both companies were lining the project up for a 2026 release. The only problem? The film didn’t have a director. Well, it did have a director at one point, two of them in fact, but by the point that that 2026 date was revealed, they’d both departed.
The Philippou brothers – makers of 2022’s incredible Talk To Me – were originally slated to direct Street Fighter, a movie based on Capcom’s enduringly popular fighting videogame franchise featuring a colourful cast of martial artists from across the globe. The Philippous were said to be massive Street FIghter fans and all looked well, until scheduling conflicts kicked in and they had to depart the project.
Instead, Kitao Sakurai is now in place to direct Street Fighter according to Daniel RPK (via Dark Horizons). Sakurai is probably best known for the prank-based road movie, Bad Trip. Given that it has a 2026 release schedule to hit, shooting on the film is set to begin soon so we’d imagine that Sakurai is coming aboard a project that is already in motion. Here’s hoping he can find his feet pretty quickly and produce something that does the game series justice.
You likely don’t need us to tell you that 1994’s Street Fighter, the only other major adaptation of the franchise, hasn’t aged well, so fans of the games have been waiting a very long time to see their heroes grace the silver screen in a film that is loyal to the game series’ lore and is fun to watch. Will it happen? We certainly hope so. We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.
