‘Street Fighter’ is coming to TV

CAIRO – 24 March 2018: One of the world's biggest video game franchises, “Street Fighter”, is set to receive a television series adaptation courtesy of Entertainment One, also known as eOne.

“Street Fighter”, released in 1987, was a massively popular video game fighting franchise published by Capcom. “Street Fighter” pits players against each other one-on-one. “Street Fighter” is known for its range of interesting characters, such as martial artist friends and rivals Ryu and Ken, U.S. Corporal Guile, Chinese Interpol officer Chun-Li, and the villainous M. Bison, leader of the corporation Shadaloo.

Currently in development, the series will be executively produced by the same team behind the massively popular live-action web-series adaptation “Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist”. Released on the YouTube channel, Machinma, in 2014 to critical acclaim, the series amassed millions of views and was named as the best adaptation “Street Fighter” has received yet. The 12-part series followed Ryu and Ken's training, and was written by stuntman Joey Ansah, alongside Jacqueline Quella and Mark Wooding.

However, the upcoming television series will follow the World Warrior plotline introduced in the 1991 game “Street Fighter II: The World Warrior”. This version sees Ryu, Ken, Guile and Chun-Li brought together as part of M. Bison's world warrior tournament, as he aims to find the world's strongest fighter. The four will need to learn to put aside their differences and join forces to defeat M. Bison once and for all.

Capcom appears rather optimistic for the project, with the game's executive producer Yoshinori Ono stating that "After a long search, guided by the team behind Assassin’s Fist, we are delighted to be partnering with a company with the outstanding TV experience of Mark Gordon and eOne. They have the credentials to help us launch a faithful adaptation of Street Fighter as a major TV series."

“Street Fighter” has been adapted numerous times in the past, the most well-known of these being the 1994 “Street Fighter” feature film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. While successful at the box office, it was considered a critical failure.

The video game side of the franchise continues to go well. The “Street Fighter” series is the third most popular Capcom property right after “Resident Evil” and “Monster Hunter”, with the latest game “Street Fighter V” released in 2016 for the PC and PlayStation 4.