UPDATE (5/12/2024): Rendel: Cycle of Revenge is officially back! Black Lion has released an official trailer and poster today. Thanks to Film Combat Syndicate for the news! You can see the post with the trailer here: https://worldfilmgeek.com/2024/05/12/rendel-finally-returns-in-the-official-trailer-to-cycle-of-revenge/

In 2017, Finland’s first superhero film was released in the form of Rendel, a masked vigilante who goes up against a chemical company whose apparent cure for disease was a cover for something much more sinister.

The film was the passion project of Jesse Haaja, a music video director who had created the character while in middle school. He described the character as “Batman meets The Punisher”. We learn in the film that Rendel was actually Ramo, a former employee of chemical company VALA who had planned to turn whistleblower after discovering their true intentions. As a result, he was left for dead but his wife and daughter were brutally murdered. Sporting a mask he makes out of a tar that sticks to his skin, Ramo becomes Rendel, the Hungarian word for “order” who has an ally in the mysterious Maria, played by Alina Tomnikov.

While the film failed to gain an audience in its native Finland, the film did relatively well internationally and Haaja was excited. In 2018, Haaja had announced that due to the international following that he would be collaborating with Canada’s Raven Banner Entertainment on an English-language sequel, Rendel 2: Cycle of Revenge.

Production had begun in September 2019 in Kainuu, Kaajani, and Jyvaskyla, Finland. Along with Kristopher Gummerus returning as the titular Rendel along with Minna Nevanoja as reporter Nina and Tero Salenius as Rendel’s wheelchair bound ally Kurikka, new cast members included British actor Sean Cronin as the main antagonist Christopher “Smiley” Cox; Australian actress Kaitlin Boye as Fugu, British child actor Jonah Paull as a kid who befriends Rendel; and iconic villain actor Bruce Payne as Smiley’s brother Edward. Jessica Wolfe would replace Alina Tomnikov as Rendel’s conscience ally Maria.

So what happened to Rendel 2: Cycle of Revenge?

Production lasted six weeks with an early 2021 release date scheduled. However, after production had completed on the film, problems began to emerge and one of the major problems was the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, which stopped production on virtually all films globally (with the exception of the Children of the Corn reboot, which helped the industry set pandemic standards in later productions).

Nothing had been known for most of 2020 and part of 2021 with the exception of some stills (including the still above of Rendel holding a sword) that were shown from the shoot. Then, being interviewed by local press in Finland, Haaja expressed his disappointment in what had transpired with the film. While he had a cut of the film made, his full vision of what he had hoped would be a superior sequel was marred by the pandemic and other issues. Then, in February 2022, a bombshell had been dropped…

Jesse Haaja officially announced his retirement from directing. While the first film was his passion project, he had hoped to make the sequel bigger and sadly, the experience had left him exhausted and he made the decision to direct a music video for Finnish rockers The Rasmus (who performs “Wonderman”, the theme of the original film) before calling it a day.

It looks unlikely we will ever see Rendel 2: Cycle of Revenge, but who knows what’s down the road. As mentioned, Haaja had made a cut of the film with what he had. Perhaps one day, Raven Banner will at least get that cut and release it to give the fanbase a sequel at least.

However, what is known is that Jesse Haaja lived a dream, went full force, and despite everything he went through, is happy where he is today and you can’t help but have total respect for him on that.

Thank You Jesse Haaja for giving us Rendel…one totally badass superhero! You can see the original film now on Tubi as of this post.