50 Cent’s “Street Fighter” Tops Box Office With $31 Million Debut

50 Cent landed at the top of the box office with “Street Fighter,” which opened to an estimated $31 million in the United States and Canada.

The Paramount release took first place across 3,575 theaters, according to Sunday studio estimates reported by The Associated Press. International ticket sales added about $20 million, bringing its worldwide opening to roughly $51 million.

Box-office tracker The Numbers listed $13 million for Friday and $10.8 million for Saturday, with Sunday estimated at $7.2 million. AP said men made up 69% of the audience.

The film arrived in U.S. theaters on October 16 with 50 playing Balrog, the boxer from Capcom’s fighting games. Director Kitao Sakurai’s take put the characters in 1993, with Ryu and Ken drawn back into combat after Chun-Li recruited them for the World Warrior Tournament.

Andrew Koji played Ryu, Noah Centineo played Ken and Callina Liang played Chun-Li. The cast also included Eric André as Don Sauvage and Jason Momoa as Blanka, putting 50 in an ensemble built around the game’s fighters.

50 knew boxing years before he took the role, having practiced it from childhood through his teens. Balrog brought him back to the sport with an Australian coach. In the pre-release interviews, he also described the recovery side of the job, including massage and cryotherapy, alongside the pressure to match the character’s build.

The film reportedly cost $82 million to produce, excluding marketing and promotion. Capcom and Legendary jointly financed the adaptation as the game company pushed to bring its characters to audiences beyond gaming.

The first-place finish came with a B-minus CinemaScore, TheWrap reported, matching the grade for the 1994 “Street Fighter.” Its domestic start fell below the $38.5 million debut of “Mortal Kombat II,” another fighting-game adaptation released in May.

The weekend’s runner-up, “You Can See Everything,” brought in an estimated $15 million from 855 screens, according to AP, giving the Elizabeth Holmes documentary second place.

The new film nevertheless cleared the earlier “Street Fighter” movies’ opening weekends in unadjusted dollars. The Numbers recorded a $9.5 million debut for the 1994 film, while “Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li” opened to $4.7 million in 2009.

Final domestic figures were due Monday.