[1][2] Following the box office failure of Golden Receiver, the rest of the films in the series were released in direct-to-video form.
[4] Kevin DiCicco's Golden Retriever Buddy was featured on "America's Funniest Home Videos" and David Letterman's "Stupid Pet Tricks".
He then (in 1991), approached the independent production company Keystone Entertainment to produce Air Bud, a film based on Buddy.
[1] By April 1998, DiCicco and Robert Vince, the film's producer at Keystone, had a falling out, as Keystone and Vince had gone forward with a sequel, Air Bud: Golden Receiver, without DiCicco, who also claimed he wasn't paid anything for the first film and that he owns the Air Bud rights (based on the name of this production company name).
He intended to make his own sequel, Air Bud: The Next Generation, which was scheduled to start production in the fall of 1999, with its concept being a "cross between Ferris Bueller and Home Alone".