“Kung Fury” was the fevered dream of Swedish filmmaker David Sandberg, who crowd-sourced a wild genre-bending short film take on the cop action film by throwing all sorts of insane elements, including Vikings, dinosaurs, time-travel, and a kung fu-trained satirical version of Adolph Hitler played by Lonely Island member Jorma Taccone. And over the weekend, high-resolution footage from the long-wrapped “Kung Fury 2” that features Michael Fassbender (“Black Bag”), Alexandra Shipp (“X-Men: Apocalypse”), David Hasselhoff, and Arnold Schwarzenegger as the President of the United States made its way online in the form of a 10-minute sizzle reel.
In the footage, which is quite revealing (be warned, plenty of hilarious spoilers are in there) that FBI Agent Colt Magnum (Fassbender) becomes a new partner of Miami cop, Kung Fury, played by Sandberg, and we see the return of Taccone’s Hitler from the original short film. The heroic characters, including an anthropomorphic Tricetops officer, from the short have now formed a new team, calling themselves the Thunder Cops.
The film had wrapped filming in late 2019, but has been stuck in “legal limbo” (as pointed out by Variety) over various financing and behind-the-scenes issues, and it’s very interesting that the footage found its way online ahead of the popular film market that takes place during the Cannes Film Festival. The original “Kung Fury” short first premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar in 2015.
In 2020, post-production work stopped due to a lawsuit between the producers and the film’s Chinese investors Creasun Media. Later that year, a lawsuit was filed against Creasun Entertainment USA (the LA arm of Creasun Media), accusing it of not paying $10 million that it promised, effectively shutting down the production. However, there has been little movement on the project since then, hence the film hasn’t been able to be released or see the light of day until this recent footage leak.
“This was an internal promo video that was never supposed to be seen by the public. I feel bad because it contains a bunch of plot points and temp VFX,” Sandberg told Variety in a statement. “I hope at least people can see the passion that we poured into the movie, the world deserves to see it as it was meant to be seen. This movie has been held hostage for the past 5 years but I promise to keep fighting for it and make sure this film gets the chance it truly deserves.”
Watching the footage below, you’ll quickly understand “Kung Fury 2” is more gross-out and bonkers juvenile comedy than something like “Lethal Weapon.” Sadly, it doesn’t sound like the legal issues will be cleared up anytime soon.
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
