Some Street Fighter fans say Andrew Schulz is why they're skipping it — Miami Vice '85 cast him too
The same casting complaint has now surfaced under two different franchise reboots, and the first of them just opened in theaters.
Street Fighter opened October 16, and its scores arrived split down the middle: 43% from critics against 83% from early audience reviews, a 38-point gap. Kitao Sakurai's film, from Legendary and Paramount, stacks its 1993 tournament with Andrew Koji's Ryu, Noah Centineo's Ken, Callina Liang's Chun-Li, Jason Momoa's Blanka, David Dastmalchian's M. Bison, 50 Cent's Balrog — and comedian Andrew Schulz as Dan Hibiki.
Schulz is where part of the audience conversation turned sour. In the thread around the film's audience score, the objection wasn't to the movie:
"Maybe not fair to the movie but I really hate Andrew Schulz and I'll probably be avoiding this movie because of that."
— a commenter on r/boxoffice (3 upvotes)
The complaint would stay a footnote if it were about one movie, but when the first images of Miami Vice '85 dropped in October, the same reaction appeared under Joseph Kosinski's cast reveal, aimed at the same name.
"How does Andrew Schulz keep getting roles? He sucks as a comedian and a person. Must have a good agent. Cast would be bulletproof without him."
— a commenter on r/movies, under the Miami Vice '85 first-look photos
The complaint showed up under Street Fighter's audience reviews and Miami Vice '85's first-look photos. The two productions share exactly one actor.
Why studios keep dialing his number
The casting logic isn't a mystery. Schulz's Flagrant podcast gives him a huge, young, hard-to-reach male audience, which is precisely the demographic a video game movie and an '80s cop reboot both need, and his profile only grew through 2024–2025 as politicians started booking his show. A studio sees a promotable name with a built-in distribution channel; the fans in these threads see a comedian they'd pay to avoid.
My position is that both things are now measurable, and Street Fighter is the first measurement. The numbers so far cut both ways: the 83% audience score says the people who showed up had fun, but the film pulled $4 million in Thursday previews and is projected around $30 million for the weekend — under Mortal Kombat II's $38 million opening in August, on the same $80 million budget, with worse reviews (43% vs 63%).
The second test is already scheduled
An opening in the low $30 millions won't settle whether any of the gap is Schulz-shaped, and in fairness, nothing can isolate one supporting actor inside a number that size. What makes this worth tracking is that the experiment repeats: Miami Vice '85 starts shooting in November with Schulz in an ensemble next to Michael B. Jordan, Austin Butler, and Walton Goggins, aimed at May 2028.
Until then, the podcast-to-multiplex pipeline keeps running on faith. Two franchises have now bet that Schulz's audience outnumbers his detractors, and as of this weekend, one of them is finding out in public.
Previously we wrote: Obsession Oscar buzz: the $750,000 horror hit wants 15 Oscars