A high-octane, wildly colourful and mostly insane sizzle reel for “Kung Fury 2,” an action-comedy starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Fassbender and David Hasselhoff that shut down during post-production in 2020 due to legal issues, has been leaked online.
The outrageously over-the-top and action-packed 10-minute promo shows Schwarzenegger as a cigar-chomping, shotgun-toting U.S. president “out to kick some Nazi ass,” Fassbender as a renegade FBI agent boasting an impressive mullet and explaining how to make a “justice omelette,” and David Hasselhoff transforming into an 80s sports car. A preposterous plot appears to involve a wildly eclectic team of human, dinosaur and half-human-half-dinosaur crime-fighters called the Thunder Cops, led by the high-kicking Kung Fury (played by writer/director David Sandberg), on a mission to clean up the streets of 1985 Miami, a mission that is somehow derailed by “the worst criminal of all time,” Adolf Hitler. Because of course.
Variety has confirmed with the filmmakers that the 10-minute sizzle — uploaded to an anonymous YouTube account — is legitimate.
“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.”
“Kung Fury 2″ — first announced in 2015 and shot in 2019 — was to be the feature-length follow up to the cult short “Kung Fury,” a cheesy and OTT homage to 1980s martial arts films and buddy cop movies that became a viral sensation on YouTube after a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign.
From Sandberg and mostly shot using a green screen in his native Sweden, the short followed the high-kicking exploits of Miami’s Lamborghini-driving “kung fu cop” Kung Fury (played by Sandberg) as he goes back in time to defeat the “Kung Fuhrer,” Hitler. Uzi-toting female viking warriors, a few dinosaurs and a half-dino police officer called Triceracop also featured (and all return in the sizzle). The full length sequel, with a budget reportedly topping $34 million and boasting several A-listers, was expected to take the same themes as the short while upping the lunacy. The promo would suggest that was achieved.
Arnold Schwarzenegger as the U.S. president in the ‘Kung Fury 2’ sizzle reel
The leak has seemingly been timed to coincide with the Cannes Film Festival, where the “Kung Fury” short first premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar in 2015 and where, the same year, the feature sequel was first announced by Sandberg and KatzSmith Productions.
After principal photography on “Kung Fury 2” wrapped in late 2019 following shoots in Bulgaria and Germany, post-production work stopped the following year due to a lawsuit between the producers and the film’s Chinese investors Creasun. In late 2020, 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. At the time, Creasun asserted that the lawsuit was meritless and filed because it had exercised its contractual rights to takeover the film. Variety understands there has been little movement on the project since then.
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