In a move that actually makes a whole lot of sense, David Dastmalchian has been tapped to play franchise supervillain M. Bison in Legendary's upcoming live-action Street Fighter movie.
According to Deadline, Dastmalchian will play the main antagonist, who was first introduced in Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior, in the long-delayed film. M. Bison, head of a crime syndicate known as Shadaloo, has a Psycho Power-induced fighting style and is hell-bent on world domination.
It's also worth mentioning that in Japan, the M. Bison is known as Vega, with the boxer character Balrog intitially being conceived as a character named Mike Bison (a parody of, you guessed it, boxer Mike Tyson). Balrog, who works for Shadaloo, is set to be played in the new pic by none other than Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson.
M. Bison was played in the 1994 live-action and low-rated Street Fighter movie by Raul Julia, who is best known (at least, in my heart) for playing Gomez Addams in The Addams Family and The Addams Family Values.
Kitao Sakurai (Bad Trip) is set to direct after Talk to Me and Bring Her Back directors Danny and Michael Philippou stepped down from the project in 2024. Production is set to begin in Australia in August.
Dastmalchian played Polka Dot Man in The Suicide Squad, and is set to play antagonist Mr. 3 in One Piece season 2. Not to mention he absolutely slayed in the 2023 indie horror Late Night with the Devil as a talk show host so desperate for ratings that he lets an evil entity onto the show. Given that Dastmalchian is overall pretty good at playing intricate weirdos, I'd say M. Bison is a pretty good casting choice.
Street Fighter does not yet have a new release date. For more, check out our ever-growing list of upcoming video game movies.
