Despite Being Terrible, 1994 Street Fighter Movie Continues to Generate Profit for Capcom

Released in 1994, the adaptation of the Street Fighter saga, with Jean-Claude Van Damme in the cast, is far from being a success. But Capcom continues to make money from it.

If we look at recent video game adaptations, we can say that they are successful: The Last of Us or fallout are excellent series. But we should not forget that these projects were sometimes ridiculous, especially in the 90s. So, it is difficult to remember Mortal Kombat, Super Mario Bros. or Street Fighter without laughing out loud. They made fans of these sagas eat black bread.

But these naughty people still fascinate certain audiences. As evidenced by this anecdote shared by Automaton on June 24. The media tells us that Capcom confided, during a conference dedicated to investors, that the film Street Fighter continues to make money, 30 years after its release and despite questionable quality. We are talking about an annual income of several tens of millions of yen.

The Street Fighter film is broken but continues to enrich Capcom

Several tens of millions of yen can constitute a more or less significant sum: 20 million yen is worth around €116,000, while 90 million yen weighs more than €520,000 in bank accounts. That's not a small income for a failed film that no longer needs to be maintained. When it was released in 1994, Street Fighter generated a revenue of 100 million dollars at the worldwide box office, for a budget estimated at 35 million. So it was already profitable.

This adaptation rode rather well on the popularity of the saga, which had just welcomed Street Fighter 2 (opus that has become cult, especially on the Super Nintendo). Director Steven E. de Souza turned to Jean-Claude Van Damme for the lead, the actor having just made a series of action films (Kickboxer, Double Impact or Universal Soldier). In the casting, we also found Kylie Minogue and the late Raul Julia (seen in The Addams Family). Street Fighter is also dedicated to his memory.

The 1994 Street Fighter film // Source: Twitter

Unfortunately (or fortunately), Street Fighter is not available on SVOD. If you ever want to see it (out of curiosity) or see it again (out of nostalgia and/or masochism), you will have to turn to buying or renting. This is undoubtedly why the feature film continues to enrich Capcom: fans have to pay to view it.