Kung Fury 2, the feature-length follow-up to the YouTube short and viral hit Kung Fury, has been stuck in a legal quagmire for years despite having been announced in 2015 and shot in 2019. But this past weekend, a trailer/sizzle reel for the sequel showed up online to enthrall those lucky enough to see it with a preview of the ridiculously insane premise, characters, and excesses of writer/director/star David Sandberg’s homage to 1980s action cinema.
The original short was released in 2015 after a crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter which raised over $600,000. Through lots of greenscreen and plenty of innovation, Sandberg introduced the world to the title character (who he also plays) who travels through time to fight Hitler (“Kung Führer”), of course. Oh, there’s also vikings and dinosaurs in the mix too.
A feature-length version/sequel was announced in 2016, and in 2018 Michael Fassbender, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and David Hasselhoff were confirmed to be starring in the film alongside Sandberg. Kung Fury 2 was shot the following year with a 2022 release date planned. That was pushed to 2023, but the film ran into legal issues and remains unreleased six years after it was shot.
So when the trailer/footage for Kung Fury 2 showed up on an anoymous account this weekend on YouTube, it was a bit of a surprise for the fans who have been wondering whatever happened to the project. It features 10 minutes from the movie, including Schwarzenegger as an action-star version of the U.S. president and Fassbender as mullett-endowed FBI agent Colt Magnum.
I reeeeally hope this means they’ve resolved the Kung Fury legal issues because I need to see more of Michael Fassbender’s Colt Magnum immediately https://t.co/ktCDcgHnHM pic.twitter.com/GrWJKXbn3x
— Matthew Ruddle (@RuddleMatthew) May 10, 2025
Sandberg tells Variety that the video, which has since been pulled from the original account that posted it, was meant for internal promo viewing: “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.”
Sandberg is apparently referring to a lawsuit between the producers and investor Creasun Entertainment USA, which accuses the company of not paying $10 million “that it promised, effectively shutting down the production,” according to Variety. “At the time, Creasun asserted that the lawsuit was meritless and filed because it had exercised its contractual rights to takeover the film.”
Unfortunatley, Kung Fury 2 has been stuck without a release date ever since then.
