Sakurai Built Street Fighter on Jolt Cola and Altman — SkimNews
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- Kitao Sakurai took over directing duties on the "Street Fighter" movie after the Philippou brothers left in 2024 to make their second film; the brothers still appear in a cameo during the Metrolao cityscape pan.
- Street Fighter opens in early-1990s Miami with Ryu missing since the 1987 World Warrior tournament, Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) devolving into an MTV spring-break party figure, and M. Bison (David Dastmalchian) staging a new tournament to capture Ryu's powers.
- Sakurai credits Robert Altman's ensemble films — especially "Nashville," which he binged at the Cleveland Cinematheque during a 1970s retrospective instead of studying for college finals — as a key influence on the film's tone.
- Sakurai corrected a reviewer who attributed the movie's energy to Mountain Dew, insisting the real fuel was Jolt Cola, a '90s staple he called "illicit"; the brand is now being brought back.
- While developing Street Fighter, Sakurai was simultaneously directing Season 2 of "Beef" after Sonny Lee Sung Jin asked him to step in for Jake Schreier, creating what he called a "weird brain split" between the gonzo action film and an Oscar Isaac/Carey Mulligan drama.
- The film ends mid-scene as an unconventional sequel hook, bypassing the typical post-credit tease — though it also has a post-credit scene — with Sakurai framing it as a tongue-in-cheek Marvel riff that underscores the film's theme of "family finding each other."
Why it matters: Sakurai's bicultural background (born in Japan, raised between Japan and America) and his resume on tonally weird projects like "The Eric Andre Show" and "Beef" made Legendary comfortable greenlighting a non-conventional video game adaptation. For a franchise approaching 40 years old, his choice to lean into — rather than sand off — the source material's stranger qualities, down to CRT screens and Jolt Cola, signals studios may be more willing to let auteur sensibilities reshape legacy IPs.
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