When Kung Fury first arrived online, fans were delighted by the weirdness of the movie. Funded via Kickstarter, the movie was written and directed by David Sandberg (not the same one who did Shazam!, no), and starred Sandberg in the title role alongside Jorma Taccone, Leopold Nilsson, and a cameo appearance by David Hasselhoff that was all the rage back in 2015. The next year, the crew started work on a sequel, this time with the help of some heavy hitters including Pride and Prejudice and Zombies scribe Seth Grahame-Smith. It went into production in 2019, with Arnold Schwarzenegger on board to play the President of the United States.
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Originally intended for release in 2022, the movie was delayed until 2023 — and that’s the last anyone has heard of it. Now, Taccone says he has seen it and calls it “a crime” that the movie hasn’t seen the light of day. Speaking with ComicBook in support of Knuckles on Paramount+ — Taccone directed the series’ fourth episode — he called Kung Fury 2 an “instant cult classic.”
“I truly hope that it comes to fruition and it gets out of legal jeopardy, or whatever has happened in the legal mumbo jumbo, because honestly, the 10-minute promo piece that I saw, I was like, ‘At the very least, this is an instantaneous cult classic,’” Taccone said. “‘This is so special. It is so funny and off the rails.’ I mean, Fassbender’s hilarious in it. I get to fight Arnold Schwarzenegger. That it doesn’t exist, it is so heartbreaking to me. It’s really like a crime. It’s a total crime that it hasn’t been released yet. I was so bored on set doing it, because I’m not used to being an actor, and so I made 10 vlog posts as Hitler, just talking. He was just being kind of emotional about a lot of things that were difficult in his life, and blah, blah.”
The boredom apparently led to at least one hilarious misunderstanding, when “Hitler” decided to make some FaceTime calls.
“When I was shooting in Bulgaria, I would occasionally just FaceTime friends to just be like, ‘Hi!’” Taccone told us. “And the funniest one I did was, I FaceTimed Seth Meyers. He picked up at an airport, and just immediately hung up on me. And he was like, ‘No. You cannot do that. I am in the public. I cannot have a Hitler on my f—ing phone.’”
Kung Fury takes place in ’80s Miami, where a hero named “Kung Fury” and his team of Thundercops (a police force made up of historical figures) try to stop an evil-doer named the “Kung Fuhrer” (aka Adolf Hitler). When a Thundercop falls, Kung Fury must go on a quest through time and space to stop the Kung Fuhrer from obtaining the ultimate weapon and destroying the Miami Kung Fu Academy.
That all changes when one of the Thundercops dies. The Thundercops disband. A new villain allies with Kung Fuhrer. All seems lost and it’s up to Kung Fury to travel through time, protect his friends, defend the Miami Kung Fu Academy, and stop Kung Fuhrer for good.
Kung Fury II: The Movie also stars Michael Fassbender as Kung Fury’s partner Colt Magnum; Alexandra Shipp as Rey Porter, a reporter close to Kung Fury; Jorma Taccone as Adolf Hitler; Leopold Nisson as Hackerman, a computer expert able to transform into a “Hackerbot”; and Eleni Young as Barbarianna, a Viking warrior who wields a minigun while riding a giant wolf. David Hasselhoff lends his voice to Hoff 9000, a Thundercop who transformed into a car.
Knuckles is now streaming on Paramount+.
