Terminator franchise for sale

I thought it was an ad for a new Burger Joint.

"Um, could I get a Reesse burger with extra Skynet Sauce and a side of Dyson nuggets?"
 
Hmm, I'd purchase it if I had the money. McG really destroyed the franchise on the last film. I'm interested to see who (if anyone) will pick it up.
 
No one wants it and I don't blame them. It's cursed.

Hemdale (T1 producer)- Went bankrupt
Orion (T1 distributor)- Gone
Carolco (T2 producer)- Gone
Halcyon- Just filed bankruptcy (They paid $30m for it 12 years ago)

No ones is going to buy it for $60m when you can pick it up in backruptcy court for a fraction of that price and even at that studios still don't want it. IMO Cameron should personaly buy it (for less than $10m) and do a new 3D terminator.

James Bond franchise has also been on the market for a while.
 
Mattykins said:
Hmm, I'd purchase it if I had the money. McG really destroyed the franchise on the last film. I'm interested to see who (if anyone) will pick it up.
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I enjoyed McG's Terminator, but at the same time, I feel like this is a blessing in disguise for the fans.

Salvation never truly delivered on the whole future war element, and also ended with such a tease and never really moved the narrative arc of the series forward much at all. But when you look at the first two, and even the third one which redeemed itself at the end, they all move the narrative along pretty far. So at the end of Salvation, it gives the impression that in the next one they'll still be focusing on the war against the machines, but then McG wanted to go back to having time travel and setting it in the present day. Ugh. No thanks.

Also, they didn't have the look of the world down. It didn't have that dismal blue hued night look that Cameron's future war scenes had. Also, where the heck are the laser and plasma based weapons? Not the most important details, but when you add all that up it starts to throw off the overall tone of the film.

I feel kinda silly admitting this, but when I heard the rights were up for grabs, I got this immediate inspiration for how I'd do the whole John Connor leads mankind to victory against Skynet storyline. So I opened up Celtx that very night and started writing. Nothing major completed yet, but the creative juices are flowing and the seeds of the narrative are blossoming. If I ever finish it and am satisfied with it, I'll post it online for the fans someday. Won't be able to do anything with it beyond that, so I figure if I can give other terminator fans something back that's reason enough to continue with it. So yeah, make fun of me for writing some terminator fan fiction.

ChipG said:
IMO Cameron should personaly buy it (for less than $10m) and do a new 3D terminator.
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If Cameron doesn't want anything to do with it, then whoever buys it should just get Neill Blomkamp to do it on a lower budget. Kinda like the first film, but not that low (6 million). Then if it is successful, which it most likely will be because it would make a much larger profit due to the lower budget, then raise the budget a bit for the next film, then more for the third. Do a future war trilogy where the action and effects aren't overbloated for the first two films, meaning that they can save the big battle for the last film's climax. So many trilogies blow their wads early on in this regard. Plus with Blomkamp at the helm, I would bet a great low budget future war could be done that looks bigger than its actual budget.
 
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It's not true that Cameron doesn't want anything to do with it, Cameron didn't want anything to do with some studio guys (Kassar brothers) serious bad blood between them. With them out of the picture now things could change.
 
Blomkamp wouldn't be where he is without Peter Jackson. So really, I think it's Jackson who made the low budget work. 6 million to do a terminator movie is crazy. Near stupid.

500 Days of Summer cost 7 million.
District 9 came in at 30 million.

I think it can be done for 30 again. But 6? That wouldn't cover the CGI factor. Nor the talent.
 
ChipG said:
It's not true that Cameron doesn't want anything to do with it, Cameron didn't want anything to do with some studio guys (Kassar brothers) serious bad blood between them. With them out of the picture now things could change.
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That's kinda what I've heard too, although you may know more about it than me.

I guess I meant that with him mentioning possible Avatar sequels and his proposed Battle Angel 3D extravaganza, he might just be too busy and would want to focus on those instead of going back to terminator. Obviously Cameron would be the number one choice to get terminator back on its feet.

Mattykins said:
Blomkamp wouldn't be where he is without Peter Jackson. So really, I think it's Jackson who made the low budget work. 6 million to do a terminator movie is crazy. Near stupid.

500 Days of Summer cost 7 million.
District 9 came in at 30 million.

I think it can be done for 30 again. But 6? That wouldn't cover the CGI factor. Nor the talent.
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That's what I meant, 30 million or so, not 6 million which was the budget for the first terminator all the way back in 1984. I just think that sort of going back to the spirit of the first film, like not having any good guy terminators, and having it helmed by a young director on a lower to mid-range budget (30 - 60 million... T3 and Salvation cost 200 million a piece) would be good way to reset the franchise and build off of for subsequent films.

If Salvation didn't have to be PG-13 and please everybody because it cost 200 million plus marketing, they could've done something that felt more authentic to the terminator standard, which are James Cameron's first two films.
 
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Nektonic said:
That's kinda what I've heard too, although you may know more about it than me.

I guess I meant that with him mentioning possible Avatar sequels and his proposed Battle Angel 3D extravaganza, he might just be too busy and would want to focus on those instead of going back to terminator. Obviously Cameron would be the number one choice to get terminator back on its feet.
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Cameron really needs to buy it and come back to it in a few years.

I'd bet almost anything dorsil fins will be circling in bankruptcy court.
 
I think we've seen enough Terminator...4 movies, a 3d theme park ride and a season and a half of television is enough for me. If I were Cameron I'd buy it back and then bury it so nobody does any more damage to his legacy.
 
Batutta said:
I think we've seen enough Terminator...4 movies, a 3d theme park ride and a season and a half of television is enough for me. If I were Cameron I'd buy it back and then bury it so nobody does any more damage to his legacy.
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I think the future war stuff was the part of the terminator mythology that wasn't overdone yet. That's the stuff I think they could focus on for another film and then end it with John Connor sending Kyle Reese and the good T800 Terminator back in time.
 
Nektonic said:
I think the future war stuff was the part of the terminator mythology that wasn't overdone yet.
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But I think the further you get into the future the further away you get from what gave Terminator its juice. The Terminator films are just a sci-fi variation on prophecy/messiah stories (this child/man will one day save the world). When you get closer to the actual prophecy it gets less potent. Also, Cameron's films are usually about women or young people (physically weaker characters) in extreme peril. When you focus on tough future soldiers fighting it, you get further away from that. That's why I think focusing so much on John Connor the warrior in the last film wasn't as compelling. From what I understand, young Kyle Reese (a more typical Cameron hero) was more clearly the lead initially, but when Bale signed on for Connor they beefed up his role considerably and threw the balance of the film out of whack.
 
Multiple Terminators going back to kill 3-4 generations of John's gand parents, great grand parents etc. all at the same time would be cool.
 
Why couldn't Skynet go back in time and just take over everything before there was a resistance? Couldn't they send back robot engineer guys to get skynet up and running?

Like a skynet attack in 2009.

I'm almost serious here.
 
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