Sony and Legendary’s live-action Street Fighter movie is truly picking up speed with a big round of casting news, and today’s new addition might just be the biggest and most impactful casting yet. Over the past few weeks, the Street Fighter film has revealed castings for Balrog (50 Cent), Dan (Andrew Schulz), and Chun-Li (Callina Liang), and now Deadline is reporting that the film has added David Dastmalchian (The Life of Chuck, The Suicide Squad) to the cast in one of the film’s most important roles.
That role is the always deadly M. Bison, who will serve as the film’s main villain. The leader of Shadaloo is set to be the film’s big antagonist, and it was previously revealed that Balrog will be his enforcer in the film as well. Other antagonists in the film include Orville Peck’s Vega and Roman Reigns’ Akuma, though there are plenty of good guys in the mix as well.
Joining in the fight against M. Bison will be Chun-Li, Ryu (Andrew Koji), Ken (Noah Centineo), and Jason Momoa (Blanka). Other heroes that could end up getting a chance to shine in the film are Guile and Cammy, though Cammy is a villain at first, so perhaps we’ll see that on the big screen too. Then there are other notable characters like Sagat, E. Honda, Juri, and Crimson Viper who could also appear, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
At one point, there was a report that indicated Walter Goggins was being looked at for the role of Bison, but that’s obviously not what ended up happening. Dastmalchian definitely brings a unique flair to Bison that should be incredibly entertaining, and as of right now, this entire cast paints a compelling and unpredictable picture of the film to come.
Dastmalchian won praise for his role in The Life of Chuck as well as his roles in Apple’s Murderbot and Late Night with the Devil, and previously, Dastmalchian also earned positive reviews as the delightful Polka-Dot Man in The Suicide Squad. He will also be showing up in Netflix’s One Piece season 2 as the villainous Mr. 3, and is set to appear in Dexter: Resurrection as well as Kodak SuperXX with Kelly Marie Tran.
Street Fighter will be directed by Bad Trip’s Kitao Sakurai, and after a host of starts and stops over the years, it appears that the film is finally on the right track and will become a reality. Right now, there aren’t any plot details, but most iterations of the franchise are still built around the central fighting tournament as the other elements of intrigue are built around it.
The original Street Fighter movie was directed by Steven E. De Souza in 1994 and featured some huge names as well. That included Raul Julia as M. Bison, Ming-Na Wen as Chun-Li, Byron Mann as Ryu, Damian Chapa as Ken, Grand L. Bush as Balrog, Jay Tavare as Vega, and Robert Mammone as Blanka. The film also featured some characters that haven’t been revealed for the new film yet, including Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile, Kylie Minogue as Cammy, Roshan Seth as Dualism, Andrew Bryniarski as Zangief, Gregg Rainwater as T. Hawk, and Wes Studi as Sagat. The film went on to make $33 million domestically and over $99 million worldwide, which was against a reported budget of $33 million.
What do you think of the live-action Street Fighter cast, and what do you want to see most from the big screen adaptation? Let us know in the comments, and you can talk all things Street Fighter and movies with me on Bluesky @knightofoa!
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