The 1994 Street Fighter Movie Was Pitched as a James Bond Adventure

The much-maligned live-action version of Street Fighter in 1994 was a victim of behind-the-scenes disaster. With Legendary’s new Street Fighter movie opening in theaters on October 16, here is how the original went from a James Bond-style pitch to a ratings battle that nearly left it with a G rating.

Unlike today’s video game movie era prioritizing the importance of game-accurate adaptations and fan service, the 1990s were a different time capsule altogether. Hollywood at the time viewed video games as a disposable cash grab, which barely respected their existing lore and visual/game mechanics in favor of dumbing down everything for mainstream audiences rather than giving what fans were really looking for.

Save for Paul W.S. Anderson’s Mortal Kombat the following year, other ’90s video game movies such as Super Mario Bros. and Double Dragon missed the point of what made them popular in the first place. The same also went for Street Fighter, which was released at the height of Van Damme’s career, transitioning into A-list stardom following the success of Timecop.

It was supposed to be something worth looking forward to, given the backing from Capcom itself combined with the star power of Van Damme and Raul Julia. Not to mention Steven E. de Souza in his major Hollywood directorial debut, whose prior high-profile credits as a screenwriter from 48 Hrs. to the first two Die Hard, seemingly made him the right fit for spearheading an action movie like Street Fighter.

Street Fighter (1994) Box Office and Rotten Tomatoes Score

Released during the Christmas 1994 weekend, the $35 million-budgeted Street Fighter subsequently went on to earn nearly $100 million, thanks largely to overseas box office grosses (its $33.4 million domestic total is in the range of the $30 million to $40 million opening Boxoffice Pro projects for the new movie). The setback? The movie ended up with critics and even fans expressing contempt (it holds a 20% Tomatometer score from 90 reviews and a 20% Popcornmeter score on Rotten Tomatoes), like a disgruntled Street Fighter character unleashed every move to destroy the parked Lexus LS 400 sedan during the bonus round, but without the extra points.

The finished product seen in Street Fighter comes across as unfaithful (sidelining Ryu and Ken as supporting roles was a huge mistake) and hastily put together, lacking the propulsive action and special effects necessary to make this work. Of course, most people would agree that Raul Julia gave his all as the megalomaniac M. Bison, whose scenery-chewing performance became the highlight of this movie. And he managed to pull off such a committed act while battling stomach cancer, even looking gaunt at the time. Sadly, he didn’t get to watch Street Fighter after he died on October 24, 1994, two months before the movie premiered in theaters.

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Why the 1994 Street Fighter Movie Became a Bond-Style Adventure, Not a Tournament Film

When de Souza was first approached by The Crow producer Edward R. Pressman, it looked promising at first as the former claimed he was “very familiar with the game [since] every weekend, [he’s] down at the arcade with his kids”. But here’s the catch: Pressman wanted him to come up with a story on such short notice, prompting de Souza to work all night long. His idea deviated from the tournament-based structure that defined the popularity of the game in the first place. He wanted to approach Street Fighter like a Bond-like adventure, which was coincidentally what Capcom was looking for with the materials given to him, including wanting M. Bison to be written as a Bond villain, complete with a blueprint of his secret underground lair.

But de Souza’s experience with Capcom wasn’t exactly smooth sailing; namely, the game company kept pressing him to include every Street Fighter character in the movie. However, he insisted that cramming too many characters into a movie clocking at just 102 minutes would be overwhelming. So, he tried to convince them that seven main characters would be a sweet spot, citing seven as a magic number throughout history, like the Seven Wonders and the Seven Dwarves.

For a while, his plan worked, until Capcom demanded more characters be added. Filming Street Fighter posed another challenge for de Souza, including putting up with the increasingly egoistic Van Damme, who reportedly had a severe substance abuse problem, and a rushed shoot in Thailand and Australia, specifically the Warner Bros. lot on the Gold Coast.

Street Fighter (1994) Rating Explained: How the MPAA Forced Re-Cuts and a Swear Word

Then came the MPAA (now the MPA) rating issue, since the board was reportedly particularly sensitive about rating an action movie after the Wickliffe Middle School shooting in Ohio in November. De Souza wanted his Street Fighter to be PG-13, but the initial cut got slapped with an R. So, de Souza and his editors were forced to re-cut the movie without a proper or specific guideline from the MPAA other than a vague “it’s too violent, it’s too bloody or it’s too scary” remark.

They ended up toning down all the violence and every scene with blood in it before sending the movie again, and this time, the MPAA reportedly gave them a G rating. But de Souza wasn’t satisfied with such a rating, claiming this would drive away teenagers since they might dismiss Street Fighter as a sanitized, kid-friendly video game movie.

With time running out to meet the locked-in December 1994 release date, de Souza went into desperate mode by calling Van Damme back in to record a swear word, reportedly “Four years of ROTC for this shit!“, and re-sent the movie one last time. De Souza finally got the PG-13 rating, despite the result still looking softer than what he originally intended in the first place.

RELATED: “Life Is Short”: Why Jean-Claude Van Damme Said No to Street Fighter 2

Where to Watch Street Fighter (1994) Online

Street Fighter is available to stream free with ads on Pluto TV and Tubi in the US, and for rent or purchase on Apple TV, Prime Video and Fandango at Home (per JustWatch as of October 13).