Steven De Souza And Capcom Wanted the Film To Be A Bond- Style Adventure
Considering it’s called Street Fighter, it’s surprising that the characters in the movie don’t actually spend much time in street fighting. Given the format of Street Fighter games, it may have made sense to focus the film on a martial arts tournament in the vein of action classics like Enter the Dragon.Other video game adaptations that appeared later, such as 1995’s Mortal Kombat and 2006’s DOA: Dead or Alive, would follow this basic tournament format. However, from the beginning, Steven de Souza was not interested in this attitude towards Street Fighter.Instead, the writer-director wanted to put the video game characters in a big James Bond-style adventurez After suggesting this to Capcom, de Souza found that they had similar ideas so that everyone agreed on the direction the film was heading.
Jean Claude Van Damme Was Paid A Quarter Of The Film’s Budget To Star
As well as being a skilled martial artist, Jean-Claude Van Damme was one of the biggest action stars around when Street Fighter was set to go before cameras. Capcom had always wanted the actor to play Guile, and were desperate to do everything they could to have him sign on the dotted line.As such, Van Damme took home a cool $8 million to appear in Street Fighter – nearly a quarter of the movie’s modest $35 million budget.This is why the bulk of Street Fighter’s cast beyond Van Damme and Raul Julia were comparative unknowns.Simply put, the production just didn’t have enough money left to hire more big name stars. Reportedly, Van Damme turned down a role in another video game movie, 1995’s Mortal Kombat, in favour of playing Guile.
Kylie Minogue Stars Because The Production Had To Cast Someone Australian
Because Street Fighter was partly filmed in Australia, the Australian Screen Actors Guild was keen to see local names get prominent roles. At the same time, de Souza and his team could not find anyone for the last remaining significant role in the cast: British soldier Cammy.De Souza was flipping through a magazine on the plane when he came across an article about actress and singer Kylie Minogue.The director made an appointment shortly after getting off the plane, and Minogue was hired on the spot. Minogue has long been a huge star in Australia and the UK, at the time she was significantly less known in the US.
The Thailand Shoot Was A Nightmare
Much of Street Fighter was filmed on location in Thailand, which posed a number of challenges for the cast and crew. First, it was the rainy season and the noise from the heavy rain meant that it was often impossible to record any live sound on set. Power outages on the set were also common, possibly due to the weather or the poor state of the Thai soundstage. There were fears of a coup d’état in Thailand when the Thai military at some point blocked the country’s roads.This meant that the cast and crew had to travel to and from the set through the canals on a speedboat.RELATED:
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The Film Was Hated By Critics, But Made Plenty Of Money.
Stephen Holden of The New York Times called the film “a dreary, overworked hodgepodge of badly edited martial arts sequences and often unintelligible dialogue.”Street Fighter has a shockingly low rating of 11 percent on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Despite this, writer/director Steven DeSouza said that even if critics didn’t like it, audiences did. Because its worldwide box office gross, on a $35 million budget, was just under $100 million.
Hasbro Used The Movie To Help Sell Its Gl Joe Toy Line:
One of the elements of the movie Street Fighter, noticeable for its absence in the original games, is the emphasis on soldiers, vehicles and firepower. Of course, the inclusion of these elements makes sense, considering the vision of de Souza and Capcom in the style of Bond, but it was not only that. Capcom collaborated with the famous toy company Hasbro to create a line of Street Fighter toys. Hasbro themselves saw in this partnership an opportunity to rejuvenate their ailing GI Joe property. GI Joe was one of Hasbro’s most stable assets, which sold well in the 80s thanks to related cartoons and comics, but by 1994, the toys stopped selling very well.
JCVD Turned Down Mortal Kombat For Street Fighter
For those who don’t know, the character of Johnny Cage was inspired by Van Damme. Before Mortal Kombat became what it is, the developers tried to secure the license to feature Van Damme in the game. It fell through, so Cage became a pastiche of the Muscles from Brussels. When Paul W. S. Anderson’s Mortal Kombat film went into production, the first choice to play Cage was the late Brandon Lee; however, his passing on The Crow set resulted in them having to look elsewhere. Van Damme was offered the part of Cage, which would’ve closed the loop on this intriguing story, but he declined it in favor of doing Street Fighter.
There Was A Continuation:
Despite the defeat of Street Fighter in the press, it had very good box office collections, and fans generally liked the style. In fact, after a few years, there was even genuine interest in the sequel. A fresh rumor suggested that Van Damme would return with most of the original cast for Street Fighter 2 in 2003. Holly Valance and Dolph Lundgren will join them.Obviously, this movie never happened, but instead we watched Street Fighter. The Legend of Chun Li. Van Damme got the opportunity to repeat his role as Guy in this film, but he refused. There he definitely made the right decision.
Martial Arts Confusion
Given that Street Fighter is a fighting tournament, the actors were forced to undergo martial arts training. Renowned fight choreographer Benny “Jet” Urquidez was called in to help. Unfortunately, Urquidez was unfamiliar with the source material and didn’t know that every fighter in the game has a different fighting style. “We had our trainer Benny, but he didn’t know what video game fighting really was – it was all new to him,” Byron Mann, who played Ryu, told The Guardian. “It was only halfway through filming that we learned that different characters have different styles. Someone said, “Wait, why is everyone fighting the same way?”RELATED:
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