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Indie distributors have had their ups and downs over the years and one of those all-time success stories was Cannon Films — until the late 1980s when it suddenly was facing bankruptcy.

A lot was riding on Cannon’s post-apocalyptic thriller CYBORG, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, when it opened Apr. 7, 1989. Made reportedly for just $500,000, it did a nicely profitable $10.2M domestic — but not nearly enough to save Cannon after some big failures like SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE (1987). Although Cannon had cut SUPERMAN IV’s original budget of $36M nearly in half to $17M, it still lost money with its $15.7M gross.

Cannon moguls Menahem Golan & Yoram Globus designed CYBORG to use the sets & costumes they’d already had made for HE-MAN, a MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE sequel to be done with Mattel, and a live-action SPIDER-MAN feature to be produced with Marvel Comics. Both films were to shoot simultaneously and be directed by low-budget pro Albert Pyun (THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER).

At the time, Cannon owned the SPIDER-MAN movie rights after having agreed to pay Marvel $225,000 over a five-year option period plus a percentage of the film’s revenues. However, if Cannon didn’t make the movie by April 1990, the rights would revert to Marvel — which they did. It wasn’t until 2002 that Marvel & Sony’s SPIDER-MAN, directed by Sam Raimi (THE EVIL DEAD) and starring Tobey Maguire, hit theatres. It reportedly cost $139M to produce and grossed $825M worldwide, spawning a priceless Sony/Marvel franchise.

Cannon became part of Pathé Communications in the late ’80s after being taken over by Italian financier Giancarlo Parretti with $250M in debt refinancing from the French bank Crédit Lyonnais. Golan left in ’89 to launch his own 21st Century Film Corp. while Globus stayed on.

Golan’s severance package included the rights to Marvel’s Spider-Man and Captain America characters. His 1990 sci-fi action adventure CAPTAIN AMERICA, directed by Pyun, went straight to home video via 21st Century. The higher profile SPIDER-MAN project eventually ended up at Columbia.

CYBORG was intended to recoup about $2M in pre-production expenses from the canceled HE-MAN & SPIDER-MAN projects. Pyun reportedly wrote it in just one weekend with Chuck Norris in mind. Golan, who co-produced with Globus, decided to cast van Damme instead. It was shot in Wilmington, North Carolina on a quick 23 day schedule.

Pyun wanted to call the film SLINGER, as in gunslinger, but Golan preferred CYBORG. The title is confusing since van Damme’s character, Gibson, isn’t a cyborg, but a gunfighter. The actual cyborg character is Pearl (Dayle Haddon), who hires Gibson to get her safely from New York to Atlanta where scientists desperately need information she has about a cure for the plague that’s devastated civilization.