Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson is joining Street Fighter, Legendary Entertainment’s feature adaptation of the classic Capcom video game.
The rapper-turned-actor and entrepreneur joins an eclectic cast, including Jason Momoa as Blanka, Noah Centineo as Ken, and country singer Orville Peck as Vega. Also on the call sheet are WWE superstar Roman Reign as Akuma, and martial artist-actor Andrew Koji as Ryu. Callina Liang is playing Chun-Li. Jackson “50 Cent” Curtis will play Balrog, a disgraced boxer who is also the villain’s bodyguard.
Kitao Sakurai, who directed Bad Trip, is set to direct the video game adaptation. Directors Danny and Michael Philippou, best known for Talk to Me, had been attached to a previous version of the project.
The Street Fighter franchise began as an arcade fighting game in 1987, followed by the very popular Street Fighter II in 1991. A feature adaptation was released in 1994 and starred Jean-Claude Van Damme, Raúl Juliá, and Ming-Na Wen. In that adaptation, Colonel William Guile and his mixed-bag army fight the tyrannical General Bison, whose vicious plans include turning a captive into a hideous mutant in order to aid his mega plan of ruling the world. In 2009, 20th Century Fox released Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li.
It’s the latest in a long line of video game adaptations to emerge from Hollywood recently, with the recent successes of The Super Mario Bros. Movie and the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, as well as A Minecraft Movie.