‘Street Fighter’ Movie Battles Skeptics

In the upcoming Universal Pictures release “Street Fighter,” Jean-Claude Van Damme as Col. William F. Guile battles to save hostages from warlord Gen. M. Bison, played by the late Raul Julia.

In real life, Japanese video game maker Capcom, which created the popular game on which “Street Fighter” is based, is battling Hollywood skeptics. The issue: Why would the company risk bankrolling by itself a movie costing nearly $40 million that is based on a video game?

Capcom’s eagerness to finance “Street Fighter” itself has raised eyebrows in Hollywood, where avoiding risk to get a film made by using other people’s money is an art form.

The company could have simply licensed the use of its characters, pocketed a fee and sat back to wait for the screening invitations to come in the mail. And with the increasingly popular Van Damme as the film’s star, getting a studio to go in as partner would have been relatively easy.

“They should have let someone else take some of the risk,” said one industry deal maker. “It’s not dumb to try to make a movie out of this. But I don’t understand for a second why they would want to take all of the risk.”

Exacerbating the doubts is the conventional wisdom that popular video games don’t translate into successful movies. Last year, the Disney release “Super Mario Bros.” proved a dud. “Double Dragon” disappeared faster than a karate kick when it opened in theaters last month. Adding to the stigma is the belief that most video games inherently lack a story, outside of kicking, punching and tossing things at wave after wave of bad guys.

“Movies made based on successful video games don’t work. There has never been a video game that works as a movie. What makes a good video game is the play ability, what makes a good movie is the story,” said one prominent producer, echoing the prevailing sentiment.

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Ed Pressman, who produced the film and whose previous credits include such pictures as “Wall Street,” “Reversal of Fortune” and “The Crow,” counters with a simple explanation on why previous tries to turn video games into films failed. “They were bad movies,” he says.

Director Steven de Souza adds that only two previous tries doesn’t prove anything. “Forrest Gump has more wisdom than this conventional wisdom. Generalizing when there’s been only two attempts at something would get you kicked out of junior high science class,” he says.

What makes “Street Fighter” different is the financial commitment by Capcom, which wanted to make the movie to give an added boost to its highly successful arcade and home video game series. The original goal was a small $15-million film, a budget that grew with the hiring of Van Damme, who reportedly will get $8 million. The decision was made before Van Damme’s “Timecop” opened to strong business this past summer.

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At one point, the plan was for Capcom to finance only half of the film, with the other part financed through the sale of various overseas rights. But Pressman argued that the company stood to make a much bigger amount of money if the film is a hit if it continued to finance the whole thing itself. He also notes that Van Damme’s movies typically do well in foreign markets and on video as well.

Pressman also says Capcom enjoys a much more lucrative deal on merchandise than it would have if a studio had gotten involved. If the movie only does the same domestic theatrical business “Super Mario” did--barely north of $20 million--Capcom will still make out all right from the various revenue streams, he contends.

Jun Aida, the film’s executive producer and director of licensing for Capcom USA’s Sunnyvale office, adds that Capcom wanted to make sure the film’s ultra-tight schedule was met so the movie would be released during this current holiday season.

Although the movie aims at a broad audience, it’s no secret to Capcom that the primary fans of its video game are youths who play it regularly in arcades and doughnut shops and who will be out of school. The film also is Van Damme’s first PG-13 film, which Capcom hopes will attract a younger audience that didn’t see Van Damme’s earlier R-rated action films.

“The worst scenario is that we could have been in gridlock. If we wanted to be making a decision quickly, we didn’t want to be chasing a financial partner who might have been out of town,” Aida said.

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Where’s Bill? The most watched person in Hollywood these days doesn’t seem to be Tim Allen or Jim Carrey, but rather Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.

Late last week, Hollywood was buzzing with the news that the 39-year-old Gates, whose net worth is almost $10 billion, actually had dinner here with executives of Pacific Telesis, Bell Atlantic and Nynex. Creative Artists Agency, which is working with the companies to develop programming and technology, arranged it.

One source downplayed the implications, suggesting that by the time Gates turns 40 he’ll probably have met with every telecommunications executive who matters.

Then again, this is a guy with a wallet so large he could buy Sony Pictures and MGM and still have enough left over to personally bail out Orange County.