After co-starring with Jack Black and working with Legendary Pictures on the massive box office success “A Minecraft Movie,” Jason Momoa has joined another high-profile video game adaptation at the studio with their new “Street Fighter” movie helmed by Kitao Sakurai (“Bad Trip”).
While names like Noah Centineo (“Warfare”) and Andrew Koji (“Bullet Train”) had been previously linked to the remake, Deadline is now backing up that information, adding that Jason Momoa (“Chief of War”) and Roman Reigns (“Hobbs & Shaw”) are also in talks for roles. However, the outlet isn’t naming who the actors will be playing as some of the big male roles are Japanese fighter Ryu and his American cohort Ken.
The main gist of “Street Fighter” is that players enter a martial arts tournament (taking some cues from films like “Bloodsport” and “Enter The Dragon”) with a colorful global roster of fighters using all sorts of different styles and have individual, unique special moves/powers. Those original video games were much more kid-friendly than other fighting games that came afterward, like the gore-focused “Mortal Kombat.”
This won’t be the first effort to turn the decade-defining Capcom arcade video game franchise, as there were two mature anime movies alongside a live-action incarnation released back in 1994 that starred Jean-Claude Van Damme, Byron Mann, Ming-Na Wen, Kylie Minogue, Wes Studi, and the late Raúl Juliá. Another live-action attempt with “Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li” was released back in 2009, starring “Smallville” actress Kristin Kreuk, but was quickly forgotten.
Given the rising audience demand for video game projects, Legendary (the studio behind “A Minecraft Movie,” the MonsterVerse, and “Dune” movies) might just be the right studio to reboot for a new generation of moviegoers. “Street Fighter” isn’t the only big film in the works based on a popular Capcom video game, as Zach Cregger (“Weapons”) is tackling a new “Resident Evil” film at Sony Pictures.
Sakurai inherited the martial arts project from The Philippou Brothers (“Talk To Me”), who ended up pivoting to make their recent release “Bring Her Back.”
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