Are you man enough for MegaForce?

Well, punk, are ya?

Would ya believe I’ve never seen this movie? In fact, up until about 5 years ago, I had never even heard of it. That’s pretty shocking because I’ve been firmly entrenched in 1980s action cheese since, well… the 1980s! I actively sought out and viewed The Ice Pirates on VHS, I bought the DVD of Krull and enjoyed it, I own a DVD copy of Roger Corman’s Deathsport, I like Solar Babies and yes, I think Hell Comes to Frogtown (starring pro wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper) is an underrated B-movie gem. Running in those circles, you’d think I’d have become aware of MegaForce much earlier than I did. I really love the name “MegaForce” though. It’s 80s awesome.

I would love to add this to my Netflix queue, but I can’t because it’s not on DVD. Why isn’t MegaForce on DVD? And for that matter, why isn’t Hell Comes to Frogtown on DVD (surely someone should release “The Roddy Piper Collection”)?! What’s wrong with you, Fox??? Allow me one more notch in the retro belt and let me see this get a release.

I have no doubts that it’s an awful movie but it looks like a silly live-action G.I. Joe movie (which I kinda consider American Ninja to be as well) and that could be fun! I’m not sure if I buy The Mayor (aka – Barry Bostwick) as action hero Ace Hunter, but I’ll give it a shot.

With a budget of $20 million, the movie only made $5 million in the theaters. The movie might have made a bit more  had Fox not picked June ‘82 to premiere it. It was going to have to compete with Poltergeist, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, E.T. and Clint Eastwood’s Firefox (all of which were released earlier in the month). If that’s not bad enough, it shared the same release date with Blade Runner and The Thing and in coming weeks it would have to fend off Tron and a re-release of Raiders of the Lost Ark. All of this, and I haven’t even mentioned May releases like Conan the Barbarian and Rocky III. So yeah, the summer of ‘82 wasn’t a good time for a project like this.

Darned if they didn’t try to make this seem like a major release though. Perhaps Fox thought this could be the new Star Wars because a toy line featuring the movie’s vehicles (not to be confused with Kenner’s unrelated 1989 “Mega Force” vehicle line) and even a video game were used to help promote the movie. The movie even had it’s own fan club, as mentioned in the ad above. The studio was hoping to produce a sequel if this one was successful enough.

"Mega Force" for Atari 2600