Golan-Globus
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Golan-Globus produced a distinctive line of low-budget films from 1979 to 1989.
The Golan-Globus team refers to Israeli producer Menahem Golan and his cousin Yoram Globus (b. 1929 and 1941 respectively in Tiberias). The duo initially produced Israeli films, like Operation Thunderbolt and the international hit teen comedy Lemon Popsicle (Eis am Stiel), before coming to the United States in 1979. They bought controlling interest in Cannon Films and forged a business model of buying bottom-barrel scripts and putting them into production.
Golan and Globus tapped into a ravenous market for action films in the 1980s, and although they are most remembered for the Death Wish sequels and Chuck Norris action pictures, Cannon's output was actually far more varied, with musical/comedy films like Breakin', , The Last American Virgin and The Apple, historical/romance pictures like Lady Chatterley's Lover, Bolero and Mata Hari, science fiction and fantasy films like Hercules and The Barbarians, as well as "serious" pictures like Zeffirelli's Othello, Norman Mailer's Tough Guys Don't Dance, and Andrei Konchalovsky's Runaway Train and Shy People.
By 1986, when company earnings reached their apex with 43 films in one year, Cannon shares had soared hundredfold. However during the late 1980s the market had cooled and Cannon Films was severely stretched, having purchased Thorn-EMI, and faced bankruptcy and a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation. Cannon Films went to new owners in 1989. Golan became the head of 21st Century Film Corporation while Globus went on to preside briefly over MGM/UA, which now owns some ancillary rights to most of Cannon's film library, while television rights are owned by CBS (owners of the successor-in-interest to the Paramount/Viacom television unit).
After Cannon's financial problems and the two cousins' split, they made competing movies with their new companies based on the contemporaneous lambada dance craze, and spitefully released the two movies on the same day in March 1990.
Film critic Roger Ebert said of Golan-Globus in 1987, "No other production organization in the world today has taken more chances with serious, marginal films."
Among the films produced by the Golan-Globus team include , Cobra, Death Wish II, The Delta Force, Invasion U.S.A., Missing in Action, King Solomon's Mines, American Ninja, and Lifeforce. The films also boosted the careers of Chuck Norris, Charles Bronson, and Sylvester Stallone.
The Cannon Group's first films in the United States were distributed independently and released on home video on the small Paragon Video label. Then, they made a deal with MGM, and their movies were distributed for home video (and later some films theatrically) by MGM, appearing in the ubiquitous gray MGM Video "big boxes." Later, Golan and Globus had a falling out with MGM, supposedly over the X-rated Bolero with Bo Derek. Their movies were then released on home video for a short time on Heron Communications' Media Home Entertainment unit, with some of the larger films, like Masters of the Universe and Over the Top, distributed by either TriStar or Warner Bros. Cannon then partnered with HBO and began its own video label, which lasted into the 90s.
Trivia
- Golan and Cannon Films were famous for making huge announcements and over-promoting movies that didn't live up to expectations, or even exist. For instance, Lifeforce was to be "the Cinematic Sci-Fi event of the 80s" and Masters of the Universe "the Star Wars of the 80s." Additionally, Cannon owned the film rights to Spider-Man, and planned to make a Spider-Man movie in the mid-80s. It was to be directed by Joseph Zito, director of Missing in Action and Invasion USA. Needless to say, the movie didn't appear, although Golan announced the movie at Cannes. (Golan would also attempt an Albert Pyun version of Spider-Man at 21st Century Pictures in the early 90s, to similar results.) Also, Golan announced in the early 80s that Cannon was producing a film starring both Sean Connery and Roger Moore. But neither actor had agreed to appear in such a film.
- One of Cannon's biggest hits was the Vietnam action picture Missing in Action, with Chuck Norris. But Cannon had put the movie we know as Missing in Action 2: The Beginning into production first. Only after the two movies were finished did they realize that the planned second movie was vastly superior to the planned first movie. So, the "first" movie became an awkward prequel.
- Cannon Films also made a movie based on Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians." The movie, released in 1989, was a severe deviation from the book and has proven unpopular amongst fans of the book.
- Cannon Films also made a movie based on the famous Mattel toy-line Masters of the Universe, starring Dolph Lundgren as He-Man. The movie, released 1987, was a critical disappointment but was slightly profitable. A sequel was planned but later turned in to another movie.
- In 1986, Cannon Films released Robotech: The Movie: The untold story in a limited run in Mesquite, Texas. Cannon was reportedly unsatisfied with Carl Macek's first version of the movie which was almost a straight adaptation of the anime Megazone 23. It was at their insistence that footage from The Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross (the series adapted as the Robotech Masters segment of the TV series) and Megazone 23 be spliced together to produce a more action oriented movie. Macek recalls that, although he himself was unhappy with this revised version, Menahem Golan, after viewing it happily said: "Now that's a Cannon Movie!". Nevertheless, Robotech: The Movie was unsuccessful in its brief Texas run and saw no further release. Carl Macek has gone on record as disowning it.
- One of the final movies produced by both Golan and Globus to get a wide release under the Cannon banner was the Jean-Claude Van Damme post-apocalyptic actioner Cyborg. Originally intended as the sequel to Masters of the Universe (and often incorrectly named Masters of the Universe II in TV-listings) the movie went in to production after the toy-line had run its course. The script was reshaped and Jean-Claude Van Damme was cast in the lead. Two sequels were later made, both have proven equally unpopular.
- In 1988, they released David Winning's debut feature [STORM].
- In 1993, the Golan-Globus film Alien From L.A., starring model Kathy Ireland, was used as the basis of episode #516 of the movie-mocking television show Mystery Science Theater 3000.
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