The Street Fighter cast is already plotting matchups that would have sounded impossible before Skydance united the rival film brands. Cody Rhodes said Guile should fight Kano, putting the crossover talk on a firmer footing just as Street Fighter arrives this month.
Rhodes drew the sharpest line between the two sides, saying, "I want to fight Kano. Yeah, I just think Guile has always wanted to represent the USA the best he can, and there’s a lot of attitude because Kano’s swinging Australia, right? So I think I’d want to make it an international affair."
Cody Rhodes and Kano
The Guile choice fits the moment because the promotional rivalry between Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat II has already done the marketing work of a crossover without making one. Mortal Kombat II grossed $129.5 million worldwide against an $80 million budget, while the first Mortal Kombat film finished at $84 million worldwide on a $55 million budget.
That box-office comparison matters now because Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures have merged and rebranded as Skydance, putting both fighting-game franchises under the same studio umbrella. A matchup that once lived in campaign banter can now be discussed as an actual development possibility rather than a one-off joke.
Dan Hibiki Wants Scorpion
Andrew Schulz, who plays Dan Hibiki, went straight at Scorpion and gave the kind of answer that makes a crossover pitch easy to picture. He said, "Listen, I want Scorpion," before adding, "Just because I feel like Dan, when Scorpion’s like, ‘Get over here!’ and he would shoot the thing, Dan would be like, ‘I’ll just come, man. Like, you don’t need to do all that, like, snake stuff out of your hand.’ Yeah. We don’t need all that. I would love that."
David Dastmalchian matched that approach with Johnny Cage, saying, "Oh, you know, I think Johnny [Cage], he’s got a big ego, and he’d want to come step in there, and he’d probably like, want me to make him a movie star in the world of shadow, and then I just destroy him. That would be really fun." Rayna Vallandingham picked Sub-Zero and said, "I want to go up against Sub-Zero. I want to see what he’s about to try to freeze my ass, see what happens. Coming for you, buddy!"
Skydance and Street Fighter
Chris Killian drove the conversation during Street Fighter press day, where the cast was asked which Mortal Kombat characters they would want their characters to fight. The answers gave Skydance something it did not have before: a ready-made rivalry map built from named pairings, which is exactly the kind of shorthand studios use when they test whether two brands can share one screen.
The practical reading is simple. Street Fighter is landing this month, Mortal Kombat II has already posted its worldwide gross, and Skydance now controls both sides of the old rivalry. That makes a Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat crossover feel less like wishful fan casting and more like the next business question in front of the studio.
