Street Fighter movie not being screened for critics

 For those of you holding out hope that "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li" might turn out to be good, here's a not-too-promising development: Fox won't be screening the movie for critics before it's released next Friday, the 27th.

Which means those who want to see it opening night will have to brave those treacherous waters review-free. Of course, in 95% of cases, not screening a movie is the studio's way of admitting critics are sure to hate it -- usually because it's bad, occassionally because it's a genre, like horror, that critics rarely appreciate.

(Full disclosure: I have seen "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li," at a private screening. But because the writer is a good friend, I can't objectively write about the actual content. I will write about the box office performance and reviews as soon as the film is released, though.

Update: On a related note, Leigh Alexander has an interesting column at Kotaku about why video game movies never quite work. I'm not sure if I agree 100%, but she makes a really good case.