Street Fighter won the North American box office on the weekend of October 16 to 18, opening at No. 1 with an estimated $31.0 million from 3,575 theatres, an average of $8,671 per theatre, according to Box Office Mojo. The Paramount Pictures release, rated PG-13 and running one hour and 59 minutes, added an international take that lifted its worldwide opening to $51.1 million, with international markets contributing 39.3 percent of the total. Critics were less enthusiastic than audiences: Rotten Tomatoes lists a critics’ score of 42 percent from 101 reviews and an audience score of 79 percent. The film beat a crowded field that included two other wide openers and a surprise documentary.
The case that this is a solid launch begins with the weekend rankings. Street Fighter finished first, ahead of A24’s You Can See Everything on $15.0 million and Universal’s Other Mommy on $8.35 million, and its $31.0 million opening is bigger than the debuts of two films still in the top ten: Other Mommy, which opened to $27.8 million on October 9, and Paramount’s own Heart of the Beast, which opened to $20.0 million on September 25. Its worldwide total of $51.1 million is already 65 percent higher than its domestic figure alone, and the film played in 3,575 theatres, so a first-place finish was not guaranteed against a documentary that sold tickets in far fewer locations.
The case against calling it a hit is just as clear in the same data. Verity, Amazon MGM’s thriller, opened to $32.0 million on October 2, slightly more than Street Fighter’s $31.0 million, and Resident Evil opened to $60.2 million on September 18, almost twice as much. Street Fighter’s per-theatre average of $8,671 is less than half the $17,543 that You Can See Everything earned in only 855 theatres. The 42 percent critics’ score, based on 101 reviews, is far below the 99 percent that the documentary holds, and international markets supplied only 39.3 percent of the worldwide opening, a smaller share than the cumulative 58.9, 62.5 and 54.5 percent for Resident Evil, Heart of the Beast and Verity.
The result matters to the studio and to the wider industry because the film is a major release in a crowded autumn schedule, and the first weekend sets expectations for what follows. Paramount now has two films in the top ten, Street Fighter and Heart of the Beast, which has earned $58.3 million domestically and $155.5 million worldwide. For audiences in the United States and abroad, the opening shows that a PG-13 action film can still lead the weekend, even when the reviews are lukewarm and the competition includes a horror film in its second week.
Street Fighter did what it needed to do on its first weekend by finishing first, and the audience score of 79 percent is a better sign than the critics’ 42 percent. The second weekend will show how far word of mouth carries it. The opening is respectable rather than spectacular, and the numbers behind it leave room for both optimism and caution.
