Casting is everything. It can make or break any movie, but recently, we’ve seen it have the most seismic consequences in the franchise/IP entertainment world. As studios have become more reliant on recognizable brands to sell tickets, they’ve gotten increasingly lazy and uninspired with their casting. With video game adaptations now en vogue, studios want flashy names to legitimize silly ideas like Minecraft and Super Mario Bros. Everyone likely prepared for the worst with the announcement of a new movie revolving around the world of Street Fighter, the iconic fighting game series by Capcom. Instead of blindly picking the most obvious muscular action heroes, producers went for the more unpredictable and unhinged route by casting Jason Momoa, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Andrew Schulz, Cody Rhodes, and David Dastmalchian. After all, this is Street Fighter we’re talking about—let’s not be too serious here.
‘Street Fighter’ is Capitalizing on the Video Game Movie Boom
Following the triumphant success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie and A Minecraft Movie, studios now covet video games the same way they did superheroes 20 years ago as the ultimate revenue stream. Be prepared: every game, in addition to toy brands in a post-Barbie world, with an ounce of mainstream popularity is going to be milked out for endless box office growth. Just like with superhero properties, fanbases are prone to demanding the utmost seriousness with these projects of childhood obsessions, which leads to needlessly self-indulgent tones and a cast of the same action stars (particularly one of the Chrises) that attempt to elevate something silly into a blockbuster with life-or-death stakes.
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The video game series has one character who also loves to wear masks.
The upcoming Street Fighter film, early in pre-production and set for a 2026 release, is not the first go-around for this franchise on the big screen. While the 1994 Street Fighter starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile was critically reviled upon release, it has since found a second life as a camp classic, or, at the very least, something embraced as “so bad it’s good.” It’s hard to stick up for it as an artistically sound or important text, but that’s exactly why it has an everlasting charm. Because the fighting game is light on story and filled with an array of eccentric characters, it forces filmmakers to capture its goofy vibe rather than adhere to lore.
The Cast of ‘Street Fighter’ is Thankfully Bonkers and Inspired
As of now, the vision of director Kitao Sakurai (replacing the Bring Her Back duo of Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou) remains a complete unknown, but the cast of the upcoming film released by Legendary and Sony, in partnership with Capcom, suggests a shrewd understanding of the campiness of the source material. Ever since audiences realized that Jason Momoa, beneath his brutish stature, was actually a comic presence, his comedic turns can be grating, but casting him to play a savage in Blanka taps into the gonzo energy of Aquaman.
Momoa only scratches the surface of this bizarre but wholly enticing cast, which ranges from figures in country music in Orville Peck to professional wrestlers in Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns, who are playing Vega (apt for a masked fighter), Guile, and Akuma, respectively. The cast also sees representation from the world of hip-hop with 50 Cent as Balrog. No one knows what comedian Andrew Schulz will bring to the table as Dan Hibiki, but the energy will likely be chaotic, a blessing for audiences who deserve a Street Fighter movie not bound by the gritty expectations of most franchise properties. Still, those needing verisimilitude with the fighting component will have renowned martial artist Andrew Koji in the cast as the series protagonist, Ryu.
The most inspired piece of casting is undoubtedly David Dastmalchian as the overarching antagonist, M. Bison. Dastmalchian has been putting in exceptional work as a character actor for years, giving sturdy, unshowy performances in Ant-Man, Dune, and Oppenheimer. Having recently led horror movies in The Last Voyage of the Demeter and Late Night with the Devil, he is not an instinctual pick to play the main heavy in a video game adaptation, but he’s more than ready to shine on the brightest stage. Although he can kill it while being a versatile background player, Dastmalchian has shown that he can play any scene with searing dramatic gravitas and theatricality.
Until reading the bonkers cast list of the new Street Fighter, it was easy to shrug off the film as another cheap cash grab of pre-established IP. With this unhinged troupe of performers across various forms of entertainment, the upcoming 2026 movie has the potential to be the right kind of off-kilter franchise starter in a landscape of familiar, cookie-cutter pieces of brand extensions.