A feature-length documentary about King Diamond has been in production for three years and is heading for the festival circuit, the Danish singer has confirmed.
Speaking to Frank Godla of Metal Injection, the Mercyful Fate and King Diamond frontman said the film has state backing in his home country and has dug considerably further back than the bands that made his name.
“There’s a King Diamond movie that has been filmed over the last three years,” he revealed. “It’s been fully supported by the Danish National Film Institute. They’re trying to do it full on with going to the film festivals and all this stuff. It’s a full-blown movie, and it’s not your average standard [documentary]. It’s more, because they have gone all the way back. They found the old bandmembers from [my first heavy rock band] Brainstorm from 1976. ’78, Black Rose [King‘s second band] members, and up to 1980, Black Rose. They found old Black Rose playing live from a little — what was it? A mini mall somewhere outside of Copenhagen from, it must’ve been early ’78 or something like that, where one of the first times I sang live ever. It didn’t sound bad. It was weird. But we played ‘Space Truckin‘ without even a keyboard.”
The Deep Purple cover he mentions predates his first records by several years. Brainstorm was his first band, formed in 1976 and Black Rose followed and ran to 1980. Mercyful Fate came together the year after that.
Regarding what the documentary amounts to, he framed it in plain terms.
He said: “I’ll tell you what [the film] is. It’s pretty much a story about a kid from Denmark with very big dreams who had practically no chance of having that come true, but somehow it really did. This film crew, the way they go about researching things is unbelievable.”
The film is directed by Danish journalist and documentary maker Frederik Brun Madsen. According to the project’s listing at Nordisk Panorama, the Nordic documentary industry event, it is produced by Peter Engel for Wingman Media, with Christian Aune Falch of UpNorth Film, Hanna Björk Valsdóttir of Akkeri Films and Tereza Šimíková of Caliber Pictures co-producing. It is registered as a four-country co-production between Denmark, Iceland, Norway and the Czech Republic.
The project was named in July among the titles selected for Nordisk Panorama‘s 2026 industry programme, which suggests the film is at or near a finished cut.
King Diamond has released twelve studio albums under his own name since forming the band in 1985, following the first breakup of Mercyful Fate. The most recent is 2007’s Give Me Your Soul…Please, which brought him a Grammy nomination.
The follow-up is the first part of a horror trilogy, Saint Lucifer’s Hospital 1920. It was trailed by the single “Spider Lilly“, released on December 17, 2024 after a five-year gap, featuring a guest appearance from Myrkur and mixed and mastered by Arthur Rizk. The video, directed by David Brodsky, was shot at the derelict Pennhurst Asylum outside Philadelphia. A second track, “Electro Therapy“, was played on the band’s 2024 North American tour. In the same Metal Injection interview, King Diamond indicated the album is now expected around April 2028.
The lineup has changed since. In July, the band and guitarist Andy La Rocque announced they had parted ways after 40 years, with Gus G. of Firewind, previously Ozzy Osbourne‘s guitarist, joining to write, record and tour. King Diamond is now Diamond on vocals, Gus G. and Mike Wead on guitars, Pontus Egberg on bass and Matt Thompson on drums.
