Fight game fans have a lot to look forward to in 2026, with both another Mortal Kombat movie and the first live-action Street Fighter movie in 32 years (somehow). Our narrative-obsessed world will pit the pair against each other in a theatrical death match (though they’re separated by five months), but the good news for everyone is that they both look great. Kitao Sakurai’s Street Fighter just had a major opportunity to add to the excitement, and we came so close.
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Ahead of UFC 325, where one of the movie’s stars fought a title match, Paramount released a Street Fighter promo, prompting some suspicions that we might be getting a second trailer at the event. But as anyone who watched knows, that did not happen, and fans now have to wait for the second teaser (or main story trailer, as it’s most likely to be). Here’s the promo:
Street Fighter’s Great Marketing Finally Misses a Beat
The Street Fighter cast posted a promo on Friday night looking ahead of the UFC event to offer their support for their co-star Alexander Volkanovski, who will face Diego Lopes in the main event for the Featherweight title. As cross-promotion goes, it’s smart – as was casting “Volk” as Joe in the first place – given the previous event (UFC 324) pulled in a huge, and record-breaking 4.96 million streaming views for the main card. With the synergy of combat sport and combat movie, Street Fighter’s move to piggyback off that was very clever. A trailer would have been even smarter: you can count on a captive audience, the topic synergy, and Volk’s personal brand. But instead we have to wait.
So far, the marketing for Street Fighter has been very good: the first trailer was surprisingly excellent (even for enthusiastic onlookers), and the game-accurate character designs have gone a long way to building confidence that we’re going to get something that matches the energy of the games. Crucially, we’ve also seen evidence that the film is balancing the right sort of non-serious tone, which is great news in an industry where grimdark adaptations are mind-numbingly frequent. It’s all been a great start, but this does feel a little like a missed opportunity. Hopefully, the second teaser – which could come as soon as next week, given the Super Bowl is coming quickly over the horizon – will be worth the wait.
Street Fighter releases in cinemas worldwide on October 16, 2026. What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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Image Courtesy of Prime Video -
Image Courtesy of Netflix
