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The Arena Studio to Develop Adaptations of Fatal Fury, The Art of Fighting Games

Entertainment news website The Hollywood Reporter reported on Friday that The Arena production studio (formerly known as Arena SNK) is developing the "South Town Saga," a series of media adaptations based on SNK's Fatal Fury and The Art of Fighting game franchises. The planned adaptations include live-action films, a webtoon, and animated series.

The Arena is developing the live-action film Geese, which tells the origin story of Geese Howard, the main antagonist in the Fatal Fury series. Grant Singer (Reptile) is writing the script and will direct the film. The film will star a younger and different version of Geese from the Fatal Fury series. The film is intended to be South Town Saga's answer to DC's Joker movie.

The company is also developing an Art of Fighting webtoon, which is being written and produced by Brandon Chen (Double Kill, Blood System webtoons). The webtoon's logline describes the story as "an action-packed two-hander that pairs two vicious rivals together to go deep into the hardened streets of South Town to save the friend and love of their lives."

The company is in active development for a Fatal Fury live-action film, with a script by David S. Goyer (Dark Knight, Blade trilogies, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Black Ops II, Black Ops Cold War co-writer). The film tells the story of brothers Terry and Andy Bogard, who watch Geese Howard kill their adoptive father. After years of training, the brothers return for a combat tournament to seek revenge.

The Arena also has an animated series in development titled Fatal Fury: The Vow, to be produced by Skybound, the company that produced Amazon Prime Video's Invincible animated series. The series will focus on Terry and Andy Bogard's formative years as they search for meaning, vocation, and training. Their paths converge again with the same goal for vengeance, but one is driven by fury, and the other by discipline. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the series will likely be made for YouTube.

According to The Arena founder Erik Feig, the Art of Fighting webtoon will be the first title released. It is intended to set up the South Town Saga. Other SNK franchises that will possibly get adaptations include Metal Slug and Samurai Shodown.

Feig (I Know What You Did Last Summer, Step Up film series producer, Mr. & Mrs. Smith executive producer) launched The Arena last year, which was initially called Arena SNK. Feig is joined by former Universal executive Matt Reilly and former Crunchyroll marketing executive Markus Gerdemann.

Gerdemann served as senior vice president for marketing in Crunchyroll from October 2022 until he left the company in October last year. Bloomberg published a report about Crunchyroll in December 2024, which included concerns from company employees and licensors about Gerdemann's management. According to the report, former and [then] current Crunchyroll employees stated that Gerdemann had angered Japanese companies Toei and TOHO in separate incidents, and at least two people who worked for him also filed complaints to human resources about his management. The complaints include alleged sexist behavior and he was accused of creating a hostile work environment. Sony investigated the sexism allegation and Gerdemann was cleared.

SNK Corporation was founded in 1978, but the company filed for bankruptcy in 2001. SNK Playmore was founded in August 2001, and the company also developed pachinko slot machines and smartphone games aside from console games, but withdrew from the pachislot (pachinko parlor slot machine game) business in 2015. SNK Playmore then changed back its name to SNK Corporation in December 2016.

SNK announced in 2022 that Electronic Gaming Development Company, the company wholly owned by Saudi Arabian organization MiSK Foundation (Mohammed bin Salman Foundation), now owns a 96.18% stake in SNK after purchasing more shares. Electronic Gaming Development Company initially invested US$216.5 million in SNK in November 2020. It acquired a 33.3% stake in the company at the time, with a plan to purchase an additional 17.7% stake in the future to raise its ownership to 51%.

SNK CEO Kenji Matsubara stepped down from his position in May 2025 and transitioned to an "advisory role."

SNK is known for its franchises such as King of Fighters, Metal Slug, Fatal Fury (Garō Densetsu), and Samurai Shodown (Samurai Spirits), and the NeoGeo console.

SNK's new fighting game Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves launched in April 2025 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Steam, and the Epic Games Store.

Sources: The Hollywood Reporter (Borys Kit), The Arena's Instagram account