Recent from talks
The Cannon Group, Inc.
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
The Cannon Group, Inc.
The Cannon Group, Inc. was an American group of companies, including Cannon Films, which produced films from 1967 to 1994. 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. The Cannon catalogue encompasses a wide range of different genres. On one hand, they are known for their highly successful 1980s action B movies, such as Missing in Action (1984), American Ninja (1985), and Bloodsport (1988). But they also produced the Oscar-nominated films Joe (1970), Runaway Train (1985) and Street Smart (1987).
Cannon Films was incorporated on October 23, 1967. It was formed by Dennis Friedland and Chris Dewey while they were in their early 20s. They had immediate success producing English-language versions of Swedish soft porn films directed by Joseph W. Sarno: Inga (1968), aka Jag––en oskuld and To Ingrid, My Love, Lisa (1968), aka Kvinnolek. By 1970, they had produced films on a larger production scale than a lot of major distributors, such as Joe, starring Peter Boyle, and The Yum-Yum Girls.
They managed this by tightly limiting their budgets to $300,000 per picture—or less, in some cases. The success of Joe brought more attention to the company. As the 1970s moved on, a string of unsuccessful films seriously drained Cannon's capital. This, along with changes to film-production tax laws, led to a drop in Cannon's stock price.
By 1979, Cannon had hit serious financial difficulties, and Friedland and Dewey sold Cannon to Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus for $500,000. The two cousins forged a business model of buying bottom-barrel scripts and putting them into production. They produced such films in a variety of genres, although their biggest successes were with action films. They tapped into a ravenous market for B movies in the 1980s. After buying the rights to the 1974 film Death Wish, Cannon produced three sequels to it in the 1980s, all starring Charles Bronson. Despite receiving negative reviews from the critics, these films were financially successful, especially Death Wish II (1982), which earned over $40 million on an $8 million budget.
Other major hits for Cannon were a series of action movies starring Chuck Norris, including Missing in Action (1984), Invasion U.S.A. (1985) and The Delta Force (1986). Missing in Action was criticized heavily as being a preemptive cash-in on the Rambo franchise. James Cameron's story treatment for Rambo: First Blood Part II was floating around Hollywood in 1983, which Golan and Globus reviewed and were "inspired" by. The writers of MIA even gave Cameron credit saying their film was inspired by his script treatment.
The Cannon Group ignited a worldwide ninja craze with "The Ninja Trilogy", a film series which consisted of Enter the Ninja (1981), Revenge of the Ninja (1983), and Ninja III: The Domination (1984), all starring Sho Kosugi, as well as American Ninja (1985) and its sequel American Ninja 2: The Confrontation (1987). Other action/adventure films they produced included the 3-D Treasure of the Four Crowns, King Solomon's Mines, and the vigilante thriller sequel Exterminator 2.
The Cannon Group's biggest financial success was with the 1986 action film Cobra, which starred Sylvester Stallone; not a low-budget film, it earned $160 million on a $25 million budget.
Cannon produced musical and comedy films such as Breakin', Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, The Last American Virgin, and the U.S. release of The Apple (directed by Golan); erotic period drama pictures such as Lady Chatterley's Lover (1981), Bolero, and Mata Hari (1985); science fiction and fantasy films such as Hercules, Lifeforce, and The Barbarians; and serious pictures such as John Cassavetes' Love Streams, Franco Zeffirelli's Otello (a film version of the Verdi opera), Norman Mailer's Tough Guys Don't Dance, and Andrei Konchalovsky's Runaway Train and Shy People.
Hub AI
The Cannon Group, Inc. AI simulator
(@The Cannon Group, Inc._simulator)
The Cannon Group, Inc.
The Cannon Group, Inc. was an American group of companies, including Cannon Films, which produced films from 1967 to 1994. 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. The Cannon catalogue encompasses a wide range of different genres. On one hand, they are known for their highly successful 1980s action B movies, such as Missing in Action (1984), American Ninja (1985), and Bloodsport (1988). But they also produced the Oscar-nominated films Joe (1970), Runaway Train (1985) and Street Smart (1987).
Cannon Films was incorporated on October 23, 1967. It was formed by Dennis Friedland and Chris Dewey while they were in their early 20s. They had immediate success producing English-language versions of Swedish soft porn films directed by Joseph W. Sarno: Inga (1968), aka Jag––en oskuld and To Ingrid, My Love, Lisa (1968), aka Kvinnolek. By 1970, they had produced films on a larger production scale than a lot of major distributors, such as Joe, starring Peter Boyle, and The Yum-Yum Girls.
They managed this by tightly limiting their budgets to $300,000 per picture—or less, in some cases. The success of Joe brought more attention to the company. As the 1970s moved on, a string of unsuccessful films seriously drained Cannon's capital. This, along with changes to film-production tax laws, led to a drop in Cannon's stock price.
By 1979, Cannon had hit serious financial difficulties, and Friedland and Dewey sold Cannon to Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus for $500,000. The two cousins forged a business model of buying bottom-barrel scripts and putting them into production. They produced such films in a variety of genres, although their biggest successes were with action films. They tapped into a ravenous market for B movies in the 1980s. After buying the rights to the 1974 film Death Wish, Cannon produced three sequels to it in the 1980s, all starring Charles Bronson. Despite receiving negative reviews from the critics, these films were financially successful, especially Death Wish II (1982), which earned over $40 million on an $8 million budget.
Other major hits for Cannon were a series of action movies starring Chuck Norris, including Missing in Action (1984), Invasion U.S.A. (1985) and The Delta Force (1986). Missing in Action was criticized heavily as being a preemptive cash-in on the Rambo franchise. James Cameron's story treatment for Rambo: First Blood Part II was floating around Hollywood in 1983, which Golan and Globus reviewed and were "inspired" by. The writers of MIA even gave Cameron credit saying their film was inspired by his script treatment.
The Cannon Group ignited a worldwide ninja craze with "The Ninja Trilogy", a film series which consisted of Enter the Ninja (1981), Revenge of the Ninja (1983), and Ninja III: The Domination (1984), all starring Sho Kosugi, as well as American Ninja (1985) and its sequel American Ninja 2: The Confrontation (1987). Other action/adventure films they produced included the 3-D Treasure of the Four Crowns, King Solomon's Mines, and the vigilante thriller sequel Exterminator 2.
The Cannon Group's biggest financial success was with the 1986 action film Cobra, which starred Sylvester Stallone; not a low-budget film, it earned $160 million on a $25 million budget.
Cannon produced musical and comedy films such as Breakin', Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, The Last American Virgin, and the U.S. release of The Apple (directed by Golan); erotic period drama pictures such as Lady Chatterley's Lover (1981), Bolero, and Mata Hari (1985); science fiction and fantasy films such as Hercules, Lifeforce, and The Barbarians; and serious pictures such as John Cassavetes' Love Streams, Franco Zeffirelli's Otello (a film version of the Verdi opera), Norman Mailer's Tough Guys Don't Dance, and Andrei Konchalovsky's Runaway Train and Shy People.