Hollywood loves salable series, and as vital as Harry Potter, Shrek and the Transformers might be to the bottom line, the studios are increasingly embracing an even more established and often better-selling franchise: the video game.
Friday's opening of "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li" is not apt to break any box-office records, largely because the film is premiering in limited national release on about 1,500 screens and likely will be eclipsed by "Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience."
Yet the martial arts "Street Fighter" film does represent part of an aggressive return to video game adaptations, a genre that has gyrated in and out of popularity and suddenly is attracting several show business superstars. Gore Verbinski, the director of the blockbuster "Pirates of the Caribbean" films, is developing an ambitious adaptation of the first-person shooter game "Bioshock," while "Pirates of the Caribbean" producer Jerry Bruckheimer and filmmaker Mike Newell ("Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire") are deep into production on 2010's action-adventure release "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time."
Like so much in the movie business, executives and filmmakers are drawn to the form thanks in part to its built-in awareness, a critical advantage with so many movies competing for a shrinking moviegoing audience. It's often difficult to get the studios to even let you in the gate if you don't have an obvious marketing hook.
"Right now, you have to have an element that brands your pitch," says Kevin Misher, a former Universal Studios production chief who in addition to producing director Michael Mann's July 1 mob drama, "Public Enemies," is about to start pitching a movie version of a video game that he doesn't want to identify publicly. "It's either a filmmaker, a piece of talent, a graphic novel or a video game -- something tangible into which a studio can put its limited development dollars."
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A profitable base
Ashok Amritraj, whose Hyde Park Films co-financed "Street Fighter" with its video game maker, Japan's Capcom Co., notes that "Street Fighter" is a "billion-dollar game franchise" that just celebrated its 20th anniversary with the release of a fourth edition of the game. The game, launched in an arcade version in 1987, was previously made into 1994's Jean-Claude Van Damme movie "Street Fighter," which, despite middling reviews, grossed nearly $100 million worldwide.
