President Arnold Schwarzenegger takes the Oval Office in a new photo from Kung Fury 2. Despite what its title implies, the upcoming martial arts action-comedy isn’t really a sequel to the 2015 short film Kung Fury. The latter was a crowdfunded viral hit directed by and starring David Sandberg (not that David Sandberg) as Kung Fury, a super-powered Miami detective whose adventures drew inspiration from classic police and martial arts action movies from the ’80s. Kung Fury 2 will expand the universe with an all-new story that’s largely unconnected to the original 30-minute short.
Once again starring and directed by Sandberg (drawing from a script he wrote with Tyler Burton Smith), Kung Fury 2 adds a handful of name actors to the mix, including Michael Fassbender as Kung Fury’s partner, Colt Magnum. Also onboard is Schwarzenegger - who, in a nod to his own real life political career, is playing the as-yet nameless U.S. President in Kung Fury 2’s version of the 1980s. Now, with filming having gotten underway back in July, The Terminator star has revealed a new look at his character in the movie.
In a post on Reddit, Schwarzenegger confirmed that he’s currently shooting Kung Fury 2 in Munich, about four years after he first met Sandberg and saw the original Kung Fury short film. And while he didn’t reveal anything about his character beyond what the photo suggests, Schwarzenegger added that he’s proud of Sandberg for getting his “hilarious vision” made, saying “For those of you who want to get into the movies, he’s proof that if you have the vision and you work non-stop and keep hustling away, you can do it”. Check out the image below.
Since his return to acting full-time in 2012, Schwarzenegger has focused on making films that either call back to or poke fun at his glory days as an action movie star in the ’80s and ’90s, including reprising his role as the T-800 in Terminator: Genisys and this November’s Dark Fate. Kung Fury 2 will give him a chance to continue riffing on his own legacy, especially since his outfit here suggests Schwarzenegger’s President might be a bit of a caricature of current U.S. President Donald Trump. The pair have sparred across social media for years now, so it’s not hard to imagine Schwarzengger would continue that by modeling his Kung Fury 2 character after Trump. This wouldn’t be the first time the latter inspired an ’80s-set movie character either, as he was previously the basis for alternate 1985 Biff Tannen in Back to the Future Part II.
Of course, the original Kung Fury didn’t take itself remotely seriously, and there’s little reason to doubt that Kung Fury 2 will be similarly irreverent. After all, this is still a movie where Sandberg’s protagonist (who gains a super powerful form of kung fu after being struck by lightning and bitten by a cobra) battles The Lonely Island’s Jorma Taccone as a time-traveling Adolf Hitler. Perhaps the biggest question is whether the film can sustain its tongue in cheek premise for a feature-length runtime without having to rely entirely on ’80s nostalgia and sly gags (like making Schwarzenegger President). If it can do that, then Sandberg might just have a cult hit in the making.
Kung Fury 2 does not have a release date yet.
Source: Arnold Schwarzenegger/Reddit
