30 May 2016
Kung Fury 2
It’s now been exactly one year since the premiere of the Kickstarter sensation Kung Fury. I remember like it was yesterday when I saw this project for the first time. It was an awesome trailer that someone had posted on Facebook for the upcoming 30 minute short that needed financial backing on Kickstarter. Growing up in the eighties, this project tingled every sense of nostalgia there could ever be.
Kung Fury is an over the top crazy action cop story about a super cop who gains super Kung-Fu skills after being bitten by a cobra, who then needs to travel back in time to kill Hitler.
When I heard about it, it was still one of the first days of their 30 days Kickstarter campaign, and not much had happened. But never the less, I start digging in my files for someone that might know David Sandberg, the creator, writer and director of Kung Fury. Once I had, I texted him and asked to meet him to see if there was some sort of collaboration to be made between Kung Fury and T-post. He quickly jumped at the idea and we scheduled a meeting a few days later.
What then happened within the next couple of days was pure magic. Internet blew up over Kung Fury. They set out to reach a goal of 200 000 USD to be able to finish the film and by the time of our meeting, they’d already reached that goal. And the money was still pouring in… fast.
I met David at my office in the middle of all this madness. He’d probably not slept for days trying to keep up with everything that was going on with the Kickstarter campaign while Hollywood was calling off the hook trying to reach the guy that the whole internet was talking about. It was an overly happy, tired but still well aware that his biggest dream was happening right then and there kind of guy that showed up at my office. I pitched my idea and we agreed that a T-post x Kung Fury issue would be the perfect collaboration for all the backers who had pledged for an exclusive Kung Fury T-shirt.
When the 30 days’ campaign had ended the count was 630 000 USD(!?) provided by over 17 000 backers. This all happened to a guy that had to sell his couch and live in his mom’s basement to be able to keep working on Kung Fury a month earlier.
This could have been the end of this Cinderella story when the film premiered at the Cannes film festival rendering standing ovations and fantastic reviews, and was released to the public for free on You Tube one week later having up until today over 24 million views, not to mention all the people that have seen it on Netflix and various other channels over the last year..
But no, no. Today exactly one year later the script for Kung Fury 2 – The Movie is finished with Hollywood backing. So, David’s journey with Kung Fury is far from over, and for me, I’m just happy to have been able to play a small (read tiny) role in all of this and to see David biggest dream come to life, right before my eyes.
