Street Fighter opens to $31 million while Whalefall's $60 million sea thriller sinks to $8 million

Street Fighter won the weekend with $31 million from 3,575 theaters, according to Deadline's Sunday figures. Whalefall, 20th Century Studios' $60 million thriller about a diver swallowed by a whale, opened in fourth place with $8 million.

Deadline says the two films were competing for the same male audience: Street Fighter's crowd was 45% men over 35, and that overlap is what hurt Whalefall. The studio that lost that fight is the same one that released the last Street Fighter film.

Street Fighter did its job, more or less

• Opening: $13 million Friday, $10.8 million Saturday, $7.2 million Sunday.
• Comparison: 19% below the $38.5 million that Mortal Kombat 2 opened to in May. Deadline says Paramount was hoping for more.
• CinemaScore: B-, below 2021's Mortal Kombat (B+) and Mortal Kombat 2 (B).
• Critics: 41% positive from 100 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average of 4.8 out of 10, per Wikipedia.
• Budget: $82 million, according to Wikipedia, which puts the worldwide total so far at $51 million.

Rotten Tomatoes' consensus credits the film with "plenty of affection for its source material" and "dizzying style", but calls its storytelling incoherent and its humour juvenile. Director Kitao Sakurai has already said a sequel is being written, with its development depending on audience reception.

A film that changed studios on the way

Legendary Entertainment bought the live-action film and television rights to Capcom's games in April 2023. According to Wikipedia, the film went through several turns before it reached cinemas:

• June 2024: Danny and Michael Philippou, originally signed to direct, drop out. They still appear in the finished film, in a cameo as fictionalised versions of themselves.
• November 2024: Legendary's deal with Sony expires. The film had been scheduled for March 20, 2026, through Sony, and is taken off the calendar.
• February 2025: Sakurai joins as director.
• August 18, 2025: filming begins in Australia under the working title Punch. It wraps on November 12.
• September 2025: Paramount takes over distribution.

The cast includes Noah Centineo, Andrew Koji, Callina Liang, Joe "Roman Reigns" Anoa'i, David Dastmalchian, Cody Rhodes, Orville Peck, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson and Jason Momoa, who is also a producer.

The third try, and the studio from the second

This is the third live-action Street Fighter. The first was Universal's in 1994. The second, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, was released in 2009 by 20th Century Fox.

Seventeen years later, the studio, now called 20th Century Studios, released Whalefall on the same weekend as the third Street Fighter, and lost to it.

Whalefall and the sea-thriller problem

Whalefall is Brian Duffield's adaptation of Daniel Kraus's novel. Austin Abrams plays a scuba diver searching for the remains of his estranged father, played by Josh Brolin, who is swallowed alive by a sperm whale. 20th Century won a bidding war for it in March 2024.

• Production: shot in Los Angeles with a California tax credit, from June 9, 2025, over 62 days. A practical whale, 12 feet tall and 18 feet wide, was built for the shoot.
• Audience: 55% male, with the 25 to 34 age group the largest at 36%. CinemaScore B; 61% definite recommend on PostTrak.
• Worldwide: $17.5 million, according to Wikipedia, against a $60 million budget.

Deadline's verdict is that the sea thriller has not worked for years. In the Heart of the Sea, a period whale story, cost $100 million and opened to $11 million; The Finest Hours opened to $10.2 million; both finished in the mid-$20 millions domestically. The last real success, by Deadline's count, was The Perfect Storm in 2000, with a $41 million opening and $182 million in the US.

The rest of the top 10

• A24's documentary You Can See Everything: $15 million from 855 theaters, second place.
• Other Mommy: $8.35 million in its second weekend, down 70%, for a $44.8 million total.
• Sense and Sensibility (Focus): $7.25 million from 2,545 theaters in its first weekend.
• Verity: $6.2 million, down 48%, for $66.1 million after three weekends.
• Resident Evil: $5.5 million, $148.5 million total after five weekends.
• Heart of the Beast: $4.83 million, $58.6 million total.

What is still unknown

• Street Fighter's second weekend. With a B- CinemaScore, the drop will show how much of the opening was fans who came on Friday.
• Whether the sequel goes ahead. Sakurai has tied it to audience reception.
• How much more Whalefall can add. It needs to make several times its current worldwide total to approach its budget.

In 2009, 20th Century Fox released the second Street Fighter film. This weekend, the third one opened to $31 million on an $82 million budget, and 20th Century's $60 million whale picture opened to $8 million beside it.