The cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe is an epic fantasy with larger than life characters; so naturally the 1987 film version decided to set most of it on Earth to keep costs low. The film was a toy commercial masquerading as a movie, but the cartoon suffered a huge drop in popularity before it came out and it failed to do much business at the box-office. Masters Of The Universe was one of the first movies to tease a sequel after the credits, and the studio had already spent money constructing sets and costumes for it. When they lost the license to He-Man they were suddenly stuck with costly sets they no longer had any use for, so they quickly slapped together a cheap Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle named Cyborg around it. The gory post-apocalyptic actioner bore little resemblance to the planned Masters II, outside of a few props. The movie at least managed to make a bit of money for the studio; proving you can always turn a frown upside down.
