were not pleased with the film. He returned to the Billy Jack franchise in 1977. However, the fourth entry in the series, Billy Jack Goes to Washington, was a failure because of distribution problems, and it proved to be Laughlin's final film. Laughlin blamed individuals within the United States government for the failure of the picture, telling CNN's Showbiz Tonight in 2005:At a private screening, Senator Vance Hartke [Note: Hartke was not re-elected in 1976] got up, because it was about how the Senate was bought out by the nuclear industry. He got up and charged me. Walter Cronkite's daughter was there, [and] Lucille Ball. And he said, 'You'll never get this released. This house you have, everything will be destroyed.' " At the time of the picture's release, Laughlin's company, Billy Jack Enterprises, had plans for a new Montessori school funded by his own foundation, a record label, an investigative magazine, books, a distribution company, and more message-laden movies, including a special subsidiary to produce films for children. He told People magazine at the time, "Three years from today, we'll be the new United Artists. Either that, or we'll be out on our butt on the street." In 1976, Laughlin announced that he was more than $7 million in debt and blamed the financial troubles on unethical behavior by Warner Bros. Pictures, which he said had illegally sold the television rights to his films. Later career In 1984, he purchased a series of 12 advertisements in Variety condemning various aspects of the film industry and its treatment of independent filmmakers. He created a blueprint for taking control of the home video distribution industry as a way for independent films to be seen. In 1985, he began production of a fifth Billy Jack film, The Return of Billy Jack, which featured the title character fighting child pornographers in New York City. However, he suffered a concussion and neck injury during filming, which led to the production being suspended. During this hiatus, funding for the picture ran out and production was never resumed. In 2009, a few scenes from the unfinished film were released on Laughlin's website. A notable incident occurred while he was filming in New York City, when he broke up a street fight on Manhattan's West Side, threatening to rip a man's arm off. He garnered notoriety at this time for making a citizen's arrest of a man