Funnily enough, although the 1994 Street Fighter movie would sport some pretty iconic character designs like Blanka’s green skin and orange hair or M. Bison’s full red leather suit with cape, it was still grounded in most areas and even Colonel Guile’s signature wide flat top was downgraded to Van Damme sort of spiking up his hair. It still made sense, and it’s hard to find purists who specifically demanded Guile’s hair to resemble the source material, but the upcoming Street Fighter adaptation looks to be a whole new ballgame.
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li would try hard to make the video game even more grounded with very little resembling the game, but we now have a sneak peek at what WWE superstar Cody Rhodes will look like as the character, courtesy of Andrew Schulz on Instagram (by way of WrestlePurists on X). In the behind-the-scenes picture, we see only a shadow of Rhodes on the ground (with a little tease of his camouflage pants in the foreground and the silhouette sports a pretty pronounced flat top hairstyle. This gives us an idea of just how faithful this new incarnation will attempt to be.
Street Fighter has been filling out its ranks rather furiously, with the cast currently consisting of Andrew Koji as Ryu, Noah Centineo as Ken, Callina Liang as Chun-Li, David Dastmalchian as M. Bison, Cody Rhodes as Guile, Jason Momoa as Blanka, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson as Balrog, Orville Peck as Vega, Andrew Schulz as Dan Hibiki, Roman Reigns as Akuma, and Hirooki Goto as E. Honda.
The film was originally slated to be directed by Danny and Michael Philippou (Talk to Me), but the pair later dropped out due to scheduling issues. Kitao Sakurai (Bad Trip) will now direct the film from a script by Dalan Musson (Captain America: Brave New World).
Street Fighter hasn’t had the best of luck on the big screen. The first live-action Street Fighter film was released in 1994, featuring the talents of Jean-Claude Van Damme, Kylie Minogue, Ming-Na Wen, and Raúl Juliá. The film was commercially successful, but was largely trashed by critics and audiences, although Julia’s performance as M. Bison was praised. Somehow, the second shot at bringing the franchise to theaters proved even worse. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li starred Kristin Kreuk, Neal McDonough, Chris Klein, and Michael Clarke Duncan and grossed just $12.8 million on a $50 million budget. Here’s hoping this third attempt will get the franchise back on track.