Fact Check: ‘Snake Eyes’ Plot Resemblance to Charlie Kirk Shooting Is Pure Coincidence

Social media users claimed a film char­ac­ter named Charles Kirk­land mir­rored Char­lie Kirk’s shoot­ing, spark­ing online spec­u­la­tion about a ‘pre­dic­tion

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH: In the after­math of con­ser­v­a­tive activist Char­lie Kirk’s shoot­ing on Sep­tem­ber 10, 2025, a wave of viral posts sug­gest­ed that the 1998 movie ‘Snake Eyes,’ direct­ed by Bri­an De Pal­ma and star­ring Nico­las Cage, had pre­dict­ed the event

Social media users point­ed to a char­ac­ter named Charles Kirk­land being shot in the neck, a box­er whose name resem­bled Kirk’s alleged killer, and a date that some claimed matched the real-life killing. These sim­i­lar­i­ties were pre­sent­ed as evi­dence of a “pre­dic­tion,” prompt­ing curios­i­ty and con­cern among some online audi­ences. But is there any truth to these claims? Let’s find out!

Viral post claims ‘Snake Eyes’ predicted Charlie Kirk’s death

The core of the viral nar­ra­tive revolves around the char­ac­ter Charles Kirk­land in ‘Snake Eyes,’ who is shot in the neck dur­ing a box­ing match. Social media posts high­light­ed that one of the char­ac­ters involved in the plot, Lin­coln Tyler, shared a last name with the first name of Kirk’s sus­pect, Tyler Robin­son

Some posts even con­nect­ed the fic­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Jezebel in the movie to the satir­i­cal web­site Jezebel, which ran an arti­cle jok­ing about pay­ing witch­es to curse Kirk days before his death.

Oth­er claims stat­ed that the killing in the movie occurred on Sep­tem­ber 10 — the same date as Kirk’s real-life death — imply­ing a remark­able coin­ci­dence or “pre­dic­tion.” The viral con­tent often includ­ed screen­shots or low-res­o­lu­tion clips from the film, empha­siz­ing the sup­posed par­al­lels in a dra­mat­ic fash­ion

Fact Check: False, no evidence the 1998 film foretold Charlie Kirk’s shooting

While ‘Snake Eyes’ does fea­ture a char­ac­ter named Charles Kirk­land being shot in the neck, the sim­i­lar­i­ties large­ly end there. The film’s shoot­ing inci­dent occurs on Sep­tem­ber 19, not Sep­tem­ber 10, and takes place dur­ing a box­ing match rather than an out­door uni­ver­si­ty event

Kirk­land is por­trayed as the US Sec­re­tary of Defense, unlike Kirk, who was a polit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor with no gov­ern­ment role. Fur­ther­more, the inves­ti­ga­tion in the movie involves a coor­di­nat­ed con­spir­a­cy, where­as author­i­ties in Kirk’s case have iden­ti­fied only a sin­gle sus­pect.

No evi­dence has emerged link­ing the sus­pect to the film or sug­gest­ing he was inspired by it. Law enforce­ment sources have not ref­er­enced ‘Snake Eyes’ in the inves­ti­ga­tion, and no man­i­festos, state­ments, or mate­ri­als have tied the killing to the movie.

Some of the sup­posed par­al­lels — such as the “Tyler” con­nec­tion and Hur­ri­cane Jezebel — appear to be coin­ci­den­tal or exag­ger­at­ed for social media viral­i­ty. Addi­tion­al­ly, con­fu­sion over dates like­ly arose from low-res­o­lu­tion footage, where “19” may have appeared as “10,” fuel­ing the mis­lead­ing nar­ra­tive.