I just recently got back from watching the Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li movie, and the review will be going up later today. But before that, I just wanted to sit down and figure something out with all of you.
Unlike the Resident Evil films, Capcom has actively branded themselves in this film, labeling it a Capcom production and all that. Normally, companies don’t do that unless they’re going to be actively pursuing the medium and want to make themselves into a greater presence in the industry and promote brand identity.
Unsurprisingly, the film does leave itself open for a sequel — I mean, this film essentially acts as backstory to the Street Fighter tournament — and so it makes me wonder if Capcom is considering turning some of their other properties into films.
Resident Evil was too successful to warrant a reboot, with each film garnering over $100 million worldwide. They could go in a totally different direction with it, but the property is mostly in Sony’s hands, it seems. There’s always the possibility of a Strider or Final Fight movie, but neither of these have as pervasive an identity in the world as Street Fighter or Resident Evil. There is the Lost Planet film that’s in development, but I don’t really know how much of a hand Capcom has in that.
I fully expect Street Fighter to be fairly profitable for Capcom, so there’s no real reason why they shouldn’t continue pushing this. I just have a feeling this is going to become a much bigger part of their agenda after this film.
