'Street Fighter' Live-Action Movie Packs WWE, UFC Stars — SkimNews
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- Paramount and Legendary's 'Street Fighter' is the third live-action film in the franchise, following 1994's 'Street Fighter' and 2009's 'Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li,' with Kitao Sakurai directing after Danny and Michael Philippou departed.
- Noah Centineo plays Ken, a washed-up celebrity fighter, and Andrew Koji plays world champion Ryu — the only two characters to appear in every mainline 'Street Fighter' video game since the 1980s arcade original.
- Real-life combat-sports stars fill major roles: WWE's Roman Reigns as Akuma, WWE's Cody Rhodes as Guile in his largest film role to date, 7'2" bodybuilder Olivier Richters as Zangief, two-time UFC champion Alexander Volkanovski as Joe, and pro wrestler Hirooki Goto as E. Honda in his American film debut.
- Jason Momoa plays the green-skinned, electricity-generating Blanka, rapper Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson plays boxer Balrog (whose signature hairstyle pays homage to Mike Tyson), and masked country singer Orville Peck makes his film debut as the claw-wielding Vega.
- David Dastmalchian plays villain M. Bison, with Callina Liang as Chun-Li, Mel Jarnson as Cammy, comedian Andrew Schulz as Dan Hibiki, and Eric Andre as announcer Don Sauvage rounding out the ensemble.
- Per Deadline's box-office coverage, the movie opened to $30M on Friday, indicating the wrestler-and-celebrity-heavy casting approach is translating into strong theatrical turnout.
Why it matters: The $30M Friday opening reported by Deadline signals that the pro-wrestler-and-celebrity stunt-casting gamble is paying off commercially. For Paramount and Legendary, the 'Street Fighter' brand still anchors a major theatrical release three decades after the original arcade games, giving video-game adaptations a credible new template: lean on WWE, UFC and music stars viewers already follow on social media.
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