Legendary and Capcom's Street Fighter reboot will now be searching for a new director, as Talk to Me helmers Danny and Michael Philippou have parted ways with the project.
"Scheduling is partly to blame," according to THR. "Legendary and Capcom were hoping to begin sooner than later. The Philippous, however, shifted focus to Bring Her Back, which re-teams with their Talk to Me studio A24. That project, which will star Sally Hawkins and Billy Barratt, begins shooting later this month in Australia."
It sounds like there might be a little more to this parting of ways than this report discloses, but either way, it's a shame that the Philippou brothers will no longer take the helm, as they sounded very enthusiastic about the film during a recent interview.
"I think it's awesome that we have such a connection with the game and to the characters, and there's not like a pre-established big film franchise where we have to fall in line [with] an overall plot," said Danny. "I think that we'd have the freedom to create what that overall arc could be if it was gonna be a bunch of films." "And also, we'd love the chance to do an action film. We'd love the chance to do big set pieces of a big budget because even on our YouTube stuff, we're designing stunt rigs that had never been done before, and to do that on a grand scale, man, I feel like we could create something no one's ever seen before."
Michael added, "And I think it's like, diving into the lore of Street Fighter, all the characters, where they come from has been so exciting. You just get endless ideas, so putting them to the screen, yeah, I think we can make something special."
Check out some recent title art at the link below.
The Street Fighter video game series remains one of the most popular fighting games franchises of all time, but hasn't fared very well with live-action adaptation up until now. The 1994 movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Kylie Minogue has amassed a cult following over the years, but is still widely regarded as a misfire, and the less said about 2009's Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li the better!
We know next to nothing about this latest take on the property, so it's impossible to say whether it will break the trend. But one thing is for sure, the movie has hit a big stumbling block with the departure of these talented filmmakers.