The mockbuster industry is a fascinating entity.
Chief among the studios that specialize in mockbusters (ie.
low-budget knockoffs of popular studio titles) is The Asylum, the company behind the “Sharkando” films.
In 2023 alone, The Asylum has released a riff on “Cocaine Bear” titled “Attack of the Meth Gator,” the latest installment in its “Transformers” ripoff franchise, “Transmorphers: Mech Beasts,” and its own animated version of “The Little Mermaid” featuring the voices of Steve Guttenberg and “E.T.” star Dee Wallace.
And they say cinema is dead!Shane Van Dyke, the grandson of acting legend Dick Van Dyke, got his start as a writer on the mockbuster circuit, penning films like “Titanic II,” “Paranormal Entity,” and “Transmorphers: Fall of Man” for The Asylum in the late aughts.
Around that same time, he also teamed up with his brother, Carey Van Dyke, to co-pen the studio’s “Street Racer” — a riff on the “Fast & Furious” films,…
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