The Terminator is back!
Deadline is reporting that Arnold Schwarzenegger is attached to star in a rights package that is shopping today that will revive THE TERMINATOR franchise. There is currently no screenwriter but Justin Lin (FAST FIVE) has been tapped to direct. Robert Cort (JUMANJI) will produce.
There’s been whispers of another TERMINATOR film, but the future for the franchise was unsure when it went to bankruptcy auction. Several people thought that James Cameron would sweep up the rights, but the director decided to pass. Instead, Pacificor bid $29.5 million, with the promise that additional multimillion-dollar payments for each film would go to Halcyon, the company that made McG’s TERMINATOR SALVATION. Pacificor beat a combined bid made by Lionsgate and Sony who planned to make back-to-back sequels that would bring the franchise to a “natural creative conclusion”.
Universal, Sony, and Lionsgate are very interested in buying the rights package for the new TERMINATOR revival. However, there is a time frame set to buy the rights. Deadline explains, “There is a stipulation in copyright law that if you assign your rights, you get them back in 25 years. In this case, Cameron assigned his rights to Hemdale, and the North American rights will revert back to him in 2018. Now, Cameron has more or less washed his hands of the Terminator franchise, but I’m told a new deal would have to be made with him if the plan was to keep making Terminator installments beyond that period. There is plenty of time to make at least two Terminator films before that happens, and that might be sufficient to end the saga that so far has spanned four films. Any financier that makes those films owns them free and clear.” Apparently the price tag on the project is $25 million.