Producer of cult classic films Enter the Ninja, Breakin’ and Bloodsport – Menachem Golan – dies at 85 | Film Fetish + FAN Calendar + Crush Collectibles Shop | Movies, TV, Music, Gaming, Sports and Events

A lobby card featuring Steve James in American Ninja 2

Sadly, Variety and Haaretz have reported that producer and director Menachem Golan, whose Cannon Film Group crafted hundreds of popular low budget movie productions during the 1980s and 90s, featuring the likes of Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris, before going bust, died Friday in Israel. He was 85.

Myself, along with millions of American teenagers grew up on a steady diet of Cannon films throughout the ’80s without even realizing it. That’s because Golan was incredibly diverse in the type and style of films he and his fellow film-obsessed cousin, Yoram Globus, produced. The prolific filmmaker worked with everyone from Richard Roundtree & Robert Shaw in the 1975 crime thriller Diamonds, to Franco Nero & Shô Kosugi the 1981 film Enter the Ninja, and Adolfo ‘Shabba-Doo’ Quinones & Michael ‘Boogaloo Shrimp’ Chambers in the 1984 street dance movie Breakin’.

Cannon Films, and its “indie” predecessor Golan-Globus Productions, were famous for latching on to pop culture trends and creating low budget films that rose above their peers in quality (at least, sometimes) and competed with major film studios. Whether it was horror, war, action, martial arts or dance, Cannon movies were mainstays in urban movie theaters and later, on VHS at video store rental shelves. Menachem Golan and Yoram Globus began their American movie careers with action exploitation titles featuring the likes of Norris and Charles Bronson. Then, in the ’80s, things grew out of control with Cannon Entertainment. According to reports, that company began increasing budgets, but ironically decreasing the quality of movies such as A Cry in the Dark, Cobra, Sahara, Over the Top and Bolero with talent including Stallone, Bo Derek and Brooke Shields. In all, Cannon produced more than 120 films between 1979 and 1989 and were known to have an aggressive pre-sales policy.

Golan – who was born in Israel and studied filmmaking at the Old Vic School & the London Academy of Music and Drama in the U.K., and then later at NYU – specialized in low-budget films as well as multinational productions through Ameri-Euro Pictures. It should be no surprise that Golan worked as an apprentice to cult movie maven Roger Corman, whose low-budget productions served as a template, according to the Variety report. His company spent $5 million or less per picture, occasionally striking gold with titles such as The Happy Hooker, Texas Chainsaw Massacre II, Lemon Popsicle and Death Wish II. Those successes gave Golan and Globus the financial clout to purchase Cannon Films in 1979

They became more ambitious at that time, producing larger projects like 1983’s The Wicked Lady, with Faye Dunaway and the 1985 movie Runaway Train, featuring Jon Voight. But even during this period, Cannon continued to go for pop culture money-makers, such as Breakin’, which took advantage of the incredibly popular street dance craze of the era. Breakin’ was release in 1984, between Wicked Lady and Runaway Train.

Menachem Golan was a true lover of film. He embraced art cinema and, according to the documentary short below, structured release deals that included both his action fare along with his more ambitious productions. He worked with the likes of Jean Luc Godard (King Lear), Barbet Schroeder (Bar Fly), John Cassavetes (Love Streams) and Robert Altman (Fool for Love).

By 1987 money began to dry up and the company began reporting massive losses. The company’s shares plummeted from a high of $45 to $5. According to reports, Giancarlo Parretti and Pathe Communications purchased 39% of the company, not long before Golan and Globus dissolved their partnership completely.

Golan continued to make movies, producing his final exploitation flick, Final Combat, in 2003, then spent the rest of the decade directing poorly reviewed Israeli films.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center held a retrospective called “The Cannon Films Canon” in November of 2010 that Golan and Globus both attended.

There are also two well-reviewed documentaries on The Cannon Group being released this year: The Go-Go Boys: The Inside Story of Cannon Films and Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films. The Go-Go Boys premiered in May at The Cannes Film Festival & screened in July at the Jerusalem Film Festival. Electric Boogaloo premiered this past weekend at Australia’s prestigious Melbourne International Festival.

Additionally, Bloodsport, one of Golan’s more popular martial arts film titles, is about to be remade. The original, which starred Jean-Claude Van Damme, has gone on to become a cult classic.

I can still vividly see those VHS boxes with that Cannon logo all over the video store. Those were great days for schlock movies.

Below is a documentary short from 1986 on The Cannon Group, which gives an overview of the production activities of the company at that time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgD-nrVvxSY

The Cannon Group was an American group of companies, including Cannon Films, which produced a distinctive line of low-to-medium budget films from 1967 to 1993. The extensive group also owned, amongst others, a large international cinema chain and a video film company that invested heavily in the video market, buying the international video rights to several classic film libraries. By 1979, Cannon had hit serious financial difficulties, and Friedland and Dewey sold Cannon to Israeli cousins Menahem Golan (who had directed The Apple) and Yoram Globus for $500,000. The two cousins forged a business model of buying rubbish scripts and putting them into production. Golan is still producing and directing films. Globus is the president of Globus Max, which has interests in film production and distribution and runs a 140-screen cinema chain in Israel. This film was made by Christopher Sykes.