The film did fairly well at the box office due to the drive-in circuit and audiences being hungry for sci-fi films after the success of
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), so Charles Band Productions announced a sequel, tentatively titled "Laserblast 2," in the 1980s, supposedly to be about two boy scouts stumbling upon the weapon and going mad with power and terrorizing their hometown; the project was also carried over to Band's later studio, Empire Pictures. For years, it was described as in development and/or partially or fully completed. In the early 1990s, an ad in Variety magazine offered full sale of the rights to the film, but it is unclear if they were purchased. The film was eventually made, but by the time it was being produced, the original had fallen into obscurity and Empire Pictures had gone bankrupt, so the film was reworked to remove all references to the original and the alien origins of the weapon and instead made it one created by the U.S. military, the end result was
Deadly Weapon (1989), written and directed by
Michael Miner, the co-creator and writer of the original
RoboCop (1987). Additionally, Band also produced another loose remake, Alien Arsenal, in the 1990s for his Action Xtreme sub-label.
