MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE 2 (Albert Pyun, 1987-88, unproduced)

[Jox]

From listening Albert Pyun's audio commentary of his CYBORG director's cut, MASTERS 2 and SPIDER-MAN were in prep in December 1987 (soon after the Black Monday which put Cannon into trouble), so while MASTERS 1 was still barely opening in Europe, therefore they launched the sequel while they didn't have the total gross yet.

What a lot of people also forget to mention is that after SPIDER-MAN and MASTERS 2 fell through, Pyun wrote the script of CYBORG from two other previous projects he had: his own remake of JOHNNY GUITAR designed with John Travolta in mind, and ALEX RAIN which was like an early version, precursor to NEMESIS with Kelly Lynch cast as the lead (she had just done the post-nuke flick OSA).

And the funny thing about SPIDER-MAN is that Joseph Zito had dropped the project he had worked on for quite a while (until Cannon shrunk the budget again) to do RED SCORPION, which was in production when Pyun got on to it and MASTERS 2...

[Jox]

Dolph was already signed on to do RED SCORPION about a year prior (with the Abramoff company pre-selling the picture at Milan Film Market -MIFED- in the fall of 1986 with the poster made from the ROCKY IV still)...



According to my interview with Stephen Tolkin, who wrote the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE 2 screenplay based on Albert Pyun's story, the people at the Mattel department they dealt with were so rude and obnoxious about their insane demands that even Golan and Globus no longer wanted to make the film, and the whole department allegedly got fired afterwards.

[Jox]

Pyun's recollection story about the MASTERS 2 / SPIDER-MAN genesis seems incomplete:
his version is that the checks to Mattel and Marvel to pursue or renew the licensing rights bounced, but it seems they still had at least SPIDER-MAN after Pyun worked on it, even when Menahem Golan left the company in 1989 to form 21st Century (and took CAPTAIN AMERICA and SPIDER-MAN with him I think)...
http://www.empireonline.com/movies/feat ... ron-films/

[Jox]

A documentary on MASTERS 2's He-man Laird Hamilton screened at Sundance this year: Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton. Doubt they mention MOTU 2...

[Jox]

New Albert Pyun interview:
http://www.money-into-light.com/2017/07 ... -1-of.html

What could we have expected from your Masters of the Universe 2 and Spiderman?
Masters of the Universe 2 would not have been as pure fantasy as the first film. It would have been more like a graphic novel. It was much darker. Spiderman was going to be in the same vein. It was going to be more emotional in the sense that it was going to be a film about how to overcome loss, and like Masters of the Universe 2, it was about the responsibilties of having to try to live up to your ideals.

I love the fact that after Masters of the Universe and Spiderman were cancelled, you re-used all the set and costume designs for Cyborg.
What had happened was that we had spent a lot of money on the prep of those two films, but Cannon reached a point where they couldn't make rights payments to Mattel and Marvel. I felt it was criminal that we had spent all this money on two films that couldn't be made so I came up with the idea of ''Let's take what we've built and go make another movie, so we can at least get that money back. '' Golan and Globus really liked that idea!

[Jox]

MOTU 2 was shut down only two weeks before filming started apparently (around the winter 1987-1988):

Screen Shot 2018-02-11 at 16.46.04.jpg (124.64 KiB) Viewed 30933 times

[bomaz]

Yes, that's likely, ad Pyun is used to make profit of movies to make other movies he made Nemesis 5 on three days after making Adrenalin for the weinsteins).

P.S : it's quite a coincidence, as I was browing Albert Pyun fb page yesterday. It's an awesome page, funny sometimes, and sad most of the times, as Albert is quite sick, but still fully passionate about filmmaking.

[Jox]

This had to be taken with pinch of salt though, because MOTU 2 was supposed to be filmed after Pyun had shot the first part of SPIDER-MAN (so that the Peter Parker actor would have time muscle up).

Both projects would have had more time (4-6 weeks) to film compared to the rest of Pyun's filmography (a few days up to 2 weeks).

Also in his condition and after 30 years, I'm not sure his memory is that precise...

[Jox]

There's some new infos about MOTU 2 on the new CYBORG special edition by Shout / Scream Factory.
Here are some examples:

- Albert Pyun had written a treatment entitled MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE 2: REVENGE OF THE BEAST (title page shown in the retrospective making of CYBORG bonus feature)

- the CYBORG pirates were initially cast as "He-Man's friends" for MOTU 2

- the story had He-Man travel to different planets to gather them

- Pyun first thought of He-Man Laird Hamilton for Fender but thought he looked too much like a Van Damme Caucasian type

- Surfer Vincent Klyn was initially found when he came to support his friend Hamilton for the MOTU 2 casting and he was cast as well

- Klyn went through the same training program as Hamilton to look less of a surfer and more of a beef-up character

- the CYBORG final fight was influenced as a sort of He-Man vs. Skeletor type fight

The audio commentary is cool and informative, although Pyun's commentary from his personal director's cut edition was more dense (started on a black screen for 20 mins about MOTU 2 and SPIDER-MAN before the film), Albert more candid, not shy about telling how he felt about certain things and working with Van Damme...

[savagesketch]

- the story had He-Man travel to different planets to gather them

This is interesting... I wonder how much of this was changed prior to the script being rewritten. When I spoke with Gary Goddard, his understanding was that producers were planning on setting the film on earth once again (most likely to save production costs). This was one of the many reasons that made Goddard decide to part ways with the production, as he felt the earth setting had been done already. The sequel, in his eyes, needed to be set entirely on Eternia.

[Jox]

I forgot to add that according to Pyun, this only to happen at the beginning of the story, which was indeed mainly set on Earth (Atlanta it seems, since they would have been filming at the Dino de Laurentiis studios near by)... And I have no idea how Pyun had planned to make that opening happen with very little money (or he wold just show sets without space sequences)

From what I gathered from his other audio commentary, I think Pyun's plans for the sequel would have departed further from the MOTU line.

It's also interesting to note that the sequel started pre-production and was to begin shooting in the fall / winter 1987 before the first film had even opened in Europe and other territories for Christmas that year, so they didn't wait for the international box office numbers...

[Jox]

- Albert Pyun had written a treatment entitled MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE 2: REVENGE OF THE BEAST (title page shown in the retrospective making of CYBORG bonus feature)

Albert Pyun got an early draft of what he called a "treatment/screenplay hybrid" that attached editor Rozanne Zingale Oriella sent out to him.
Stephen Tolkin had also worked on the MOTU 2 script...



Pyun, king of recycling, is apparently taking ideas and characters from this for his new project BAD ASS ANGELS...

[Jox]

Pyun, king of recycling, is apparently taking ideas and characters from this for his new project BAD ASS ANGELS...

The "inspiration" must be very, very loose (maybe Pyun is using the MASTERS 2 reference as gimmick to intrigue fans about his project)

Synopsis: http://badassdemons.com/2017/04/26/bad-ass-angels/

[Nathan]

I thought Pyun was basically not fit to do anything anymore? I know he closed his Facebook page down a year or so ago because his dementia had gotten too bad.

[Jox]

His health is not very good but the symptoms seem to come and go, and he's obviously a filmmaker who would rather die making a movie than doing nothing... That said it's shame many projets he's done in the past decade are either not released or unfinished.