Surf Ninjas

Ernie Reyes Jr. was already the martial-arts kid of the era: he grew up on his father's West Coast Demo Team, doubled Donatello's stunts in the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film and played Keno the pizza boy in the 1991 sequel. Surf Ninjas, released by New Line on August 20, 1993 and directed by Neal Israel from a script by Israel and Dan Gordon, gave him the lead as Johnny, a Los Angeles surfer who learns with his brother Adam (Nicolas Cowan) that they are heirs to the throne of Patusan, ruled by Leslie Nielsen's Colonel Chi. Rob Schneider plays their friend Iggy, Tone Lōc an LAPD lieutenant, Kelly Hu the princess and Ernie Reyes Sr. the uncle Zatch. Reyes Jr. was also an associate producer.

The Sega tie-in was the unusual part. New Line and Sega of America partnered on a Game Gear game while the film was still being written, with Israel giving input and Gordon writing "action sequences that would both suit the film and serve as a springboard for the video game"; Sega partly financed the $6.5 million film in return. Cowan later said a Game Boy had been suggested first. In the movie Adam finds that the Surf Ninjas game on his Game Gear matches the events happening around him, and that he can steer some of them through it; the real cartridge reached stores that August, ahead of the film.

Shooting ran through the summer of 1992, the second half of the film first, then Los Angeles for the first half, with locations in Thailand and Hawaii. It opened 13th with $2 million and finished at $4.9 million in the US. Janet Maslin found it "only mindlessly watchable," The Washington Post's Richard Harrington "a harmless summer's entertainment," and the Philadelphia Inquirer's Desmond Ryan "beyond airheaded"; Rotten Tomatoes has it at 23 percent. VHS came in January 1994, a DVD in 2002, and Amiga versions of the game in 1994.