They Were Days Away from Making a Deepfake Trump Movie—Then the World Shut Down, and That Idea Was Lost… Until South Park Brought It Back in the Wildest Way

You’re not going to believe where that bizarre deepfake Trump scene from South Park actually came from.

At first glance, fans were convinced the viral Trump PSA in the season premiere was AI-generated. The uncanny face, the exaggerated features, the strange vibe—it felt like it had to be. But in true South Park fashion, it was something even weirder.

Turns out, it wasn’t AI at all. It was a deepfake of Donald Trump’s face plastered onto a real actor’s body—an idea that Trey Parker and Matt Stone didn’t just pull out of nowhere. It was recycled. And its origin story is one of those “what could’ve been” Hollywood heartbreaks.

Back in early 2020, Parker and Stone were just one day—one day—away from starting production on a brand-new feature film. It would’ve been their first since Team America: World Police. They’d spent months preparing. The actors were ready. The cameras were set. And then… COVID hit. The world slammed shut overnight. Their film was scrapped, just like that.

The project? A wild, satirical deepfake comedy titled Deep Fake: The Movie. Starring Peter Serafinowicz, the film would’ve followed a man who looked exactly like Trump—because they literally planned to deepfake Trump’s face onto him. The entire story was designed to be a chaotic, over-the-top takedown of Trump, ending (as you probably guessed) with a naked Trump double getting hilariously dragged through the mud.

But with the world in crisis and the moment slipping away, the film was shelved indefinitely. “The timeliness of it has passed,” Parker admitted at the time. The idea was too specific, too of-the-moment. And that moment was gone.

Still, something about that idea stuck. The deepfake tech they built for the movie didn’t go to waste—they created a VFX studio, Deep Voodoo, and even experimented with some Sassy Justice skits online. But it wasn’t the same. The movie was never revived.

Fast forward to this year.

Trump’s back in the headlines. The cultural chaos has returned. And Parker and Stone? They didn’t need a movie anymore. They had South Park. And with it, a second chance.

So they dusted off the idea, brought back the deepfake Trump, and did what they do best: made the world laugh, squirm, and shout all at once.

And yes—if you were wondering—Trump’s embarrassingly tiny… part… in the episode? Just a googly-eyed finger. Classic Parker and Stone.

It’s wild to think: an entire movie idea, lost to the pandemic, quietly resurrected in a cartoon. But maybe that’s the most South Park thing of all—turning a scrapped plan into something even more bizarre and unforgettable.