Paramount has released the first official trailer for its live-action Street Fighter film, confirming a theatrical release on October 16, 2026. The trailer pitches the movie as a loud, knowingly stylized adaptation set in 1993, with Ryu, Ken, and Chun-Li pulled into the World Warrior Tournament as a deeper conspiracy takes shape around them.
That matters because Street Fighter adaptations have always had a tone problem. Take the material too seriously and it can turn stiff fast. Play it too loose and it collapses into parody. This first trailer suggests the movie is aiming for the narrow lane between those extremes, leaning into the series’ absurdity without pretending it has to be realistic to work.
The strongest thing in the trailer is probably confidence. It is not hiding the costumes, the moves, or the exaggerated personalities. Reports around the trailer point to a cast that includes Noah Centineo as Ken, Andrew Koji as Ryu, Callina Liang as Chun-Li, Jason Momoa as Blanka, 50 Cent as Balrog, and Roman Reigns as Akuma, which tells you immediately the movie is not trying to shrink Street Fighter into something ordinary.
That is probably the correct read on the property. Street Fighter is not beloved because it is subtle. It is beloved because it is theatrical, colorful, and instantly legible. The trailer seems to understand that the best way to honor the series is not to sand all of that down for prestige. It is to stage it with enough conviction that the audience buys in.
The side-by-side comparison talk around the trailer makes sense because fans naturally want to spot references, moves, and visual callbacks. There are plenty of those in the footage already. Still, that is not what will decide whether this works. Plenty of game movies have nailed the iconography and still missed the point once the story had to carry a full runtime.
The real test is whether the film can keep this heightened style going without exhausting itself. The trailer looks campy, but not embarrassed. That is a better sign than another self-serious attempt to make Street Fighter respectable. Players do not need respectability from this series. They need energy, charm, and fights that feel big enough to justify the name.
There is still a long road between a strong trailer and a good movie. Street Fighter has been a hard series to adapt cleanly, and this cast alone guarantees strong reactions from fans who already have fixed ideas of how these characters should look and move.
Even so, the first trailer does something important. It makes the movie feel like a real creative choice instead of a cautious brand exercise. That is not the same thing as a win, but it is a much better place to start than most game adaptations get. October 16 now feels less like a curiosity date and more like a release players will actually want to keep an eye on.
