How Carolco Shaped My Movie Memories

The critical and commercial failure of Cutthroat Island (1995) is said to have been the reason for Hollywood not betting on Pirate movies until Johnny Depp, Jerry Bruckheimer and Gore Verbinski revolutionized the genre almost twenty years later.

I’ve always loved CI.

The majority of my deep affection for this film comes from the enormous admiration I have for the principal driving forces behind it – Mario Kassar, Renny Harlin and Geena Davis.

Kassar, together with his longtime business-partner Andrew G. Vajna, of course founded Carolco Pictures, one of the most prolific and successful independent film-companies ever.

During The Eighties and early Nineties, Carolco basically was behind every film that made me fall in love with Hollywood, and cemented the careers of my heroes Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.

The company produced an incredible string of hits and classics, including –

First Blood (1982)
Red Heat (1988)
Total Recall (1990)
The Doors (1991)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Basic Instinct (1992)
Universal Soldier (1992)
Chaplin (1992)
Cliffhanger (1993)
Stargate (1994)

And many more…

Vajna left Carolco in 1989 to start Cinergi Pictures, another fixture in my movie memory with big-ticket releases such as Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Judge Dredd (1995), Nixon (1995), and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003).

I remember that when I first started noticing the Cinergi logo in front of the movies I loved, I just assumed that Cinergi was the new Carolco Pictures. I was of course very young, and this was waaay before a time wherein one could look up every question on the internet. It wasn’t until much later that I learned that Kassar and Vajna had went their separate ways, and that CI had actually bankrupted Carolco…

The sinking of my favorite studio still makes me sad today. Cliffhanger was such a terrific film, and I was totally on board with Renny Harlin – who was my favorite filmmaker at the time – helming a pirate movie for Carolco next. Plus, the film was going to star Geena Davis, who I had adored since Ridley Scott’s Thelma & Louise (1991).

After revisiting it recently, I remain adamant that there’s just so much to love about CI.

First of all – the pic looks absolutely gorgeous. Costumes, sets, locations and special effects, Carolco spared no expense to truly transport us to age of swashbuckling.

Furthermore – the casting is just spot on. I totally buy Davis as a heroic pirate and Matthew Modine as the charming scoundrel. Most of all however, I love Frank Langella as the fearsome Dawg. The guy was simply born to play a pirate.

And finally – I’ve said this before and I will repeat it ad infinitum – nobody does an explosion quite like Renny Harlin. From the baddies’ plane in Die Hard 2 (1990) to the bridge in The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), Harlin really knows how to lens a beautiful boom.

And CI is no exception. The climactic obliteration of The Reaper is so intense, that it all but shatters your TV screen.

So, what happened to the key players after Carolco, Cinergi and CI? For the most part, they are still going strong. Kassar is currently producing and developing multiple movies across the globe, Harlin just wrapped his 39th feature as a director with several projects in the pipeline, and Geena Davis alternates the occasional movie-appearance with her work as an environmental activist.

Sadly, Andy Vajna, whose name had become synonymous to great movies for me, is no longer with us today. The film icon passed away in 2019, with Terminator Salvation (2009) listed as his final production. Curiously, IMDb also mentions two upcoming projects…

Will there ever be another Carolco or Cinergi? Probably not. The times and industry have changed too dramatically for the business model to make sense anymore. There are of course big, bold independents like EuropaCorp and Millennium Media that are similar in spirit to Kassar and Vajna’s ventures, but it’s just not the same.

Luckily, most Carolco and Cinergi titles are just as fun to watch today as they were three or four decades ago. I doubt the same will be true for many movies of the 21st century…

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Twitter (X): Robin Logjes | The Screen Addict