Street Fighter Leads a Crowded Opening Weekend as Four New Films Chase the Box Office Crown

LOS ANGELES

Four new movies walk into the same weekend, and they could hardly be less alike: a video game brawler, a man trapped inside a whale, a three-hour documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, and Jane Austen. Only one of them is expected to win, and it is the one with the fireballs. Street Fighter, Paramount's new adaptation of Capcom's fighting game franchise, opens Friday, October 16 in more than 3,500 North American theaters, and according to projections reported by The Hollywood Reporter and summarized by Planet of Films, it is expected to earn in the mid-$30 million range domestically, with a similar amount projected internationally. On a quiet mid-October weekend with no incumbent blockbuster standing in the way, that should be more than enough for first place. The interesting fight is over what happens underneath it.

The favorite, and its price tag

Street Fighter arrives with a reported production budget of $82 million, shared equally between Legendary Pictures and Capcom, per Planet of Films' summary of the trade reporting. That is a serious but not reckless number for a franchise property, and it shapes what success looks like: a global opening in the neighborhood of $70 million, in line with the domestic and international projections, would put the film within reach of profitability if audiences stick around for a second weekend. Directed by Kitao Sakurai, the film leads with Noah Centineo, Andrew Koji and Callina Liang, with a wider ensemble that release listings and Deadline's reporting, via Koimoi, fill out with Jason Momoa and David Dastmalchian among others. It is the latest attempt to film a franchise that launched in 1987 and defined the arcade era — a property whose fans are now old enough to bring their own kids, which is precisely the demographic math studios are counting on.

The trackers do not all agree on the size of the debut, and the spread is worth knowing before anyone declares a winner on Sunday. Box Office Theory's weekend forecast put Street Fighter in a $22 million to $32 million range, leaning on its IMAX and premium-screen footprint and its matinee-friendly PG-13 rating, while Box Office Pro's preview ranged from $30 million to $40 million. The Hollywood Reporter's mid-$30 millions figure sits between those poles. All of them are projections, not grosses, and the honest way to read them is that forecasters expect a comfortable first place with genuine uncertainty about whether nostalgia turns a solid opening into a big one.

Critics swung; the audience gets the next round

The reviews are where the weekend gets spicy. The Hollywood Reporter, in the verdict quoted by Planet of Films, called the film a jumbled tonal mess, and other notices summarized in the trades were similarly mixed, though not uniformly hostile — some critics found the maximalist, fan-service-heavy approach destined for cult status, and the ensemble's comic turns drew praise. A late review embargo, which Box Office Theory flagged as a mild concern in its forecast, did not help the pre-release mood. Here is the thing about video game adaptations, though: the audience that grew up feeding quarters into Street Fighter II cabinets is not waiting on review aggregators. They are deciding based on the trailer, the cast and whether their friends text them on Friday night. If opening-night audiences have fun, the critics become a footnote. If they do not, an $82 million production with mixed reviews has a very short runway, because next weekend's audience will have heard about it.

The whale, the fraud documentary and Jane Austen

Second place is projected to go to the weekend's most gloriously explainable premise. Whalefall, from 20th Century Studios, opens in 3,065 locations and is projected by the trade summaries at $10 million to $12 million against a reported $60 million budget. Austin Abrams stars as a diver swallowed by a sperm whale and fighting to escape, with Josh Brolin in support — a high-concept survival thriller that Box Office Pro described as a fascinating original swing whose word of mouth will make or break it. Original, R-rated-leaning genre bets like this are exactly what the theatrical business keeps saying it wants more of, which makes its opening a small referendum as well as a gross.

The weekend's critics' darling, meanwhile, is a documentary. You Can See Everything, A24's film about Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes in the period before she reported to prison, is directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim and opens in roughly 800 theaters — a fraction of Street Fighter's footprint — with projections around $7 million to $8 million, per Filmofilia's summary of Variety's pre-release figures — a remarkable target for a documentary made for a small fraction of what the fiction releases cost. Do that math and the documentary may be the most efficient money on the board: a fraction of the theaters, a sliver of the budget, and a per-theater average the big releases would envy. It premiered as a secret screening at Telluride and has been riding exceptional reviews ever since.

Rounding out the four is Focus Features' Sense and Sensibility, Georgia Oakley's new adaptation of Jane Austen's novel, opening in 2,436 locations with Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esme Creed-Miles as the Dashwood sisters. Focus projects an opening around $8 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter's weekend preview, on a modest production budget. It is pure counterprogramming: while the multiplex's biggest auditorium fills with arcade nostalgia, the Austen adaptation offers the weekend's adults a romance with a literary pedigree and its own loyal audience.

By Sunday night we will know whether Street Fighter landed its opening combo or merely won a weak weekend by default. Either way, this is the kind of frame the industry claims to want — an original thriller, a documentary with heat, a literary adaptation and a franchise swing, all in theaters at once. Somebody in that lineup is going to surprise. Our money, like everyone else's, is on the whale being weirder than expected.

Keep up with the weekend's releases in our news feed and the rest of today's entertainment coverage, including the new Bad Fairies casting news.