Live-action Street Fighter projects are coming, and they better learn from John Wick

John Wick: Chapter 4 has been one of the biggest box-office hits in 2023 as one of Hollywood’s premier action franchises builds on past wins to lay the foundations for a new era in action storytelling. There are plenty of lessons Hollywood should learn from the Wick franchise, and there’s a new exciting opportunity for them to apply them: Street Fighter is coming back to your screens.

There’s no confirmation on what exactly Legendary Pictures, the production studio behind the new Dune movies and the recent Godzilla and Kong movies, has planned for the franchise, but it has both the movie and TV rights to the Street Fighter. acquired series. Street Fighter has been adapted a few times: first in the 1994 cult classic starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Raul Julia and Ming-Na Wen, but also in 2009’s The Legend of Chun-Limultiple animated adaptations and a slew of fan movies and web series.

A new Street Fighter project is said to be the latest in a long line of high-profile video game adaptations. HBOs The last of us just finished its first season in march, The Super Mario Bros. Movie premieres this week, Not charted And Sonic the Hedgehog have seen box office success and there are upcoming projects adapting Silent Hill, Ghost of Tsushima, And Falloutamong many others.

There’s currently no director attached, but following John Wick’s lead, Legendary would be smart to put someone with a background in stunt work in charge of the project. Action movies directed by former stunt professionals are all the rage, and rightly so: these folks know what good action is, from the choreography and blocking to the lighting and editing.

We know that Chad Stahelski is more than booked (with a few video game adaptations as well), but someone like direct-to-video has Isaac Florentine or Jesse V. Johnson, or Day shift director JJ Perry (who is involved in the action in the upcoming Blue Beetle), or Furies director Veronica Ngô, whether one of the litany of hard-working action professionals behind the camera could elevate street fighter to the kind of action-oriented project the franchise calls for. And it’s not just John Wick which proves this can work: Netflix saw one of their great successes go in that direction with the Chris Hemsworth-led extraction (and the sequel looks great), directed by former stuntman Sam Hargrave.

Which brings us back to the topic of major video game adaptations, and there’s one that any Street Fighter adaptation could do well to avoid: 2021’s Mortal Kombat.

In 2021, Warner Bros. a revival of the Mortal Kombat franchise with the Simon McQuoid directed Mortal Kombat. McQuoid, an accomplished commercial director who made his feature film debut in Mortal Kombatwith a script written by Dave Callaham (Wonderwoman 1984, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) and the first screenwriter Greg Russo. Despite bringing together a great cast, including Hiroyuki Sanada and the incredible Joe Taslim, the movie was pretty bad. Most of the fight scenes were edited out of recognition and the movie lacked the kinetic energy you need from a Mortal Kombat amendment. Most importantly, it was a Mortal Kombat movie that literally had no Mortal Kombat tournament in it. I’m still angry about that part.

Image: new line home video

It pales in comparison to the original, campy Mortal Kombatwhich was filled with over-the-top, lavish production and costume design, and great fights that were central to the story.

Director Paul WS Anderson had a who’s who of action movie stars working with him on the original Mortal Kombat. Jeff Imada (The Bourne Series), Pat E. Johnson (The karate kid) … the list goes on (Jesse V. Johnson, JJ Perry and Tony Jaa were all involved early in their careers). That’s because it’s not enough to just hire great fighters and put them on screen – real martial artists playing Chun-Li, Ken, Ryu and the rest is a bare minimum. You have to have people behind the camera and in the editing room who really understand what makes cinematic action sing.

So please, unnamed Street Fighter adaptation, have fun with it. Add some street fighting! Hire people who are doing all the good work in the action world to do that same good work on your movie. It can make all the difference.