The same cameraman shot Doc Savage and Buckaroo Banzai.

Both movies end by promising a sequel that never got made.
Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze came out in 1975. George Pal produced it, Michael Anderson directed it, and Ron Ely played Doc.

Doc is a pulp polymath who works with a team called the Fabulous Five.

It ends by announcing the next picture, Doc Savage: The Arch Enemy of Evil. It was never shot.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension came out in 1984. W.D. Richter directed it, Earl Mac Rauch wrote it, and Peter Weller played Buckaroo.

Buckaroo is a neurosurgeon, physicist, and rock star who works with a team called the Hong Kong Cavaliers.

It ends by announcing the next picture, Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League. It was never shot either.

Some write-ups treat the two as father and son. A 2013 Amazing Stories list called Banzai “clearly a homage” to Doc.
Richter says otherwise. In a 2016 email to the fan site World Watch One, he wrote: “It’s a misconception that Doc Savage was an influence. Too tight-ass.”

The creators point to kung-fu pictures, Gene Autry serials, Saturday matinees, and Thomas Pynchon.

The films share no cast, no writers, and no studio. Doc was Warner Bros. Banzai was Sherwood and Fox.

What they do share is Fred J. Koenekamp. He shot Doc Savage in 1975 and is the director of photography on Buckaroo Banzai in 1984. Jordan Cronenweth started the Banzai shoot, and Koenekamp is the one on the finished film.

Banzai also reaches back to 1938. The Yoyodyne payroll at Grover’s Mill lists 46 men named John, each with a Social Security card dated November 1, 1938.

That date points to Halloween 1938, when Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre staged The War of the Worlds on radio as a live news report. The Martians landed at Grover’s Mill, New Jersey.

New Jersey, Jeff Goldblum’s character, makes the connection. In the film’s lore it was not a hoax. The Lectroids really landed and hypnotized Welles into calling it one.

Doc Savage has one more surprise in the cast. Paul Gleason played Long Tom, one of the Fabulous Five. Ten years later he was Assistant Principal Richard Vernon in The Breakfast Club, the man running Saturday detention.