Although The Cannon Group Inc. — A.K.A. Cannon Films — had been in the movie-making business since the late ’60s (with meager beginnings making English-language versions of Swedish softcore “films”), it wasn’t until the company was bought by Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus in 1979 that Cannon became the B-tier action movie powerhouse that cinephiles such as myself came to know and love (for better and for worse).
Throughout the ’80s and into the early ’90s, Cannon Films released cornerstone action “shlockbusters” such as Death Wish, Missing in Action, The Delta Force, Ninja III: The Domination, American Ninja (basically every Ninja movie of the ’80s, it seems) and perhaps most famous of all (and also what might have contributed to the studio’s downfall), Masters of the Universe.
In fact, there is a great documentary on the rise and fall of Cannon Films that will blow your mind should you be interested called Electric Boogaloo: The Wild Untold Story of Cannon Films.
So by now you might be thinking, “Why is this dude giving us a history lesson on a now defunct, bonkers film production company that made schlocky ’80s action movies?” Which is a fair question. I wanted to color some background on what Cannon was, and their contribution to the industry before to backup my assertion that with the new RoboCop: Rogue City game, developer Teyon is slowly resembling Cannon Films, only reimagined as an ’80s action-game studio. Before we get our streams too crossed here, I should point out that I’m not referring to the Netflix movie, Rogue City; instead, I’m talking about Teyon’s first-person shooter Robocop game.
You might be thinking that Teyon sounds familiar, but maybe you can’t place why. Well, the developer has made a handful of games over the years, such memorable classics as Heavy Fire: Shattered Spear or Urban Trial Playground. And who could forget about Paranormal State? Seminal classics if ever there were any…
But it wasn’t until Teyon released 2014’s Rambo: The Video Game (not to be confused by the movie version of Rambo, which failed to denote in a subtitle that it was, in fact, a motion picture) that the studio really made a name for themselves and started what would become — with the upcoming RoboCop: Rogue City and 2019’s Terminator: Resistance — the developer’s foray into some of the biggest action franchises from the ’80s.
Now, of course I’m having a bit of fun here, but I will say that RoboCop: Rogue City actually looks pretty darn fun, but we’ll have to wait until June of 2023 to see how it performs. If nothing else, it’s nice to see a studio that isn’t just taking a beloved, iconic ’80s film franchise and making another soulless 4v1 shooter and calling it a day. And after seeing the direction Teyon is going with Robocop, what will be interesting to see (at least for me) is where the studio goes from here. If Teyon continues its ’80s-action-movie-to-game renaissance, what franchise will it tackle next?
I would love to see a take on a more narrative-driven, comedy-tinged action series like Beverly Hills Cop. If Teyon could get Eddie Murphy to reprise his role and lend his voice and likeness to the video game version of Axel Foley, similar to what Peter Weller did for this upcoming Robocop game, then we would really have a Beverly Hills stew going.
I guess we’ll just have to cross our fingers and wait.
In the meantime, you can check out the latest trailer for RoboCop: Rogue City below.
