The little parody that could just added a big star to its cast. Arnold Schwarzenegger has joined Michael Fassbender in the cast of a feature film that will be adapted from the cult-favorite digital short Kung Fury.
The Governator is an appropriate casting choice for Kung Fury, given the film’s status as a send-up of 80s action movies. When the project first premiered as a Kickstarter campaign in 2013, its over-the-top pitch video drummed up enough nostalgic laughs to allow the team at Laser Unicorns to raise more than $350,000. Those funds financed a 30-minute short film, which premiered on YouTube in 2015 and immediately went viral, notching more than three million views in a single day.
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That sort of success tends to catch the attention of Hollywood, and sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. It producers David Katzenberg and Seth Graeme-Smith are throwing their weight behind a feature film version of Kung Fury, which will be directed by Laser Unicorns founder David Sandberg. Fassbender was the first star attached to the flick, with Schwarzenegger joining him three days later. David Hasselhoff, who had a cameo in the Kung Fury short and performed its epic theme song, will appear in the upcoming film as well.
There’s certainly a lot of star power attached to the Kung Fury movie, though it remains to seen whether a concept that already felt stretched at 30 minutes can make it all the way to 80 or 90. No matter how the film fares, however, Laser Unicorns should be commended for making it this far. Thanks to the power of the internet and the ridiculous nature of 80s action movies, Sandberg and co have gone from anonymity to working with major Hollywood stars. Good for them.
