About a month ago I wrote about how the Terminator franchise rights were up for grabs now that the company who owns the rights, Halcyon Co., has filed for bankruptcy. Well, the rights to the beloved sci-fi franchise are now officially on the auction block and we already have a wild opening bid that’s making news.

The man behind the bid? Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and  Dollhouse.

According to the LA Times, The Halcyon Co. hopes to have the Terminator rights sold off by January, 2o1o, if only to start recouping some of the money they lost on the failed venture that was this summer’s Terminator Salvation (that title suddenly holds a lot of irony, doesn’t it?). There is also the possibility that Halcyon will hop on a “stalking horse,” which is basically a motivated buyer who bids early (and high enough) to have the property put on hold while the buyer then performs full due diligence on said property. To boil it even further down into layman’s terms: If some high-pockets out there thinks there is enough juice left to be squeezed out of the Terminator franchise, they’ll pay to be able to look deeper into just how much money they can make off it.

Sony and Warner Bros. are being floated as the studios circling the property right now, as is independent studio Summit Entertainment (the Twilight guys). But studios are not the only ones interested, apparently; rich guys from the private sector “…have expressed strong interest” said Kevin Shultz, senior managing director of FTI, Halcyon’s hired financial advisors.  Ironically enough, one of those private sector guys making an early bid is none other than Joss Whedon, who in the last 24 hours posted a whopping $10,000 bid for the Terminator rights on fan site whedonesque.com, sparking off rumors galore.

Since that initial “bombshell,” Whedon has explained his out-of-left-field bid to Entertainment Weekly:

“Here’s the thing: It’s not a slam on The Terminator. I love The Terminator. That part’s totally true. I was thinking to myself, ‘Not since they auctioned off frames from The Little Mermaid have I wished I had more money this much. So you know what, never hurts to ask.’ I loved the movies, even the later movies. I loved the mythology. I loved the TV show [The Sarah Connor Chronicles]–like, really loved. Not for pretend. And not just because of [star] Summer [Glau].”

The most surprising thing I read in that quote is that Joss Whedon is actually a fanboy for The Sarah Connor Chronicles – that show certainly didn’t do any favors for the first season of Whedon’s Dollhouse last year!

Needless to say, I’m sure The Halcyon Co. will get a better offer than Whedon’s for the Terminator rights – but wouldn’t be cool if by some chance Joss Whedon became the master of the Terminator universe (or would that be more of a disaster)?  Anyhoo, Halcyon bought the rights for $25 million and now figures their worth – after all the great, great, work they did on Terminator Salvation – to be up around the $60 million range. Whoever nabs said rights gets to call the shots on how any other sequel films or TV spin-offs will go down (hopefully far removed from McG’s terrible plans for T5), and will inherit whatever money can still be squeezed out of Salvation when it hits DVD in December.

Do you have a strategic business plan for who should hold the rights to the Terminator franchise? Should it be a studio or an independent investor who just has that much love for the series?

Sources: LA Times, Entertainment Weekly

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Somebody over at The Halcyon Co. should’ve been listening when Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor told us that the future isn’t certain in Terminator 2. Just a few months ago, a sequel to Terminator Salvation was all but guaranteed; then came the lawsuits between Halcyon (owner of the Terminator franchise rights) and Pacificor, the hedge-fund that sponsored Halcyon’s purchase of the Terminator rights.

Now, it seems that The Halcyon Co. (headed by Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek) is so far in the red – between Terminator Salvation’s underwhelming returns at the box office, the venture capital needed to buy the franchise rights and alleged manipulations by Pacificor to ensure Halcyon’s financial ruin – that the company is reportedly looking to sell off the Terminator rights to make a buck.

Just a couple weeks after we reported that McG was prepping Terminator 5, it appears that the film may be dead in the water. According to a number of sources, a proposed sequel to this year’s underwhelming Terminator: Salvation may be out of the question due to a legal dispute between The Halcyon Co. (which own the rights to the Terminator franchise) and Pacificor (a Santa Barbara, California-based hedge fund that helped Halcyon buy the franchise).

As explained in the L.A. Times, The Halcyon Co., which is headed by Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek, has filed two separate $30M lawsuits against the company (one against Pacificor and one against a former Pacificor employee).

Two film directing projects on the horizon for McG (Terminator Salvation) is the Disney remake of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and the fifth installment in the Terminator franchise, currently being referred to as simply Terminator 5. It appears that McG’s focus is currently on 20,000 Leagues, with T5 to follow after that. Thanks to IESB and Collider, we have an update on both high-profile projects.

Two days ago, Screen Rant reported on one of the newest TV Spots for Terminator Salvation. That commercial showed off the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s face appeared in the movie in a short scene as the T-800 killing machine.

Why is that significant?

Well, my thoughts were that the folks behind the movie were getting desperate to have people come see the movie in theaters now that it has been out for several weeks in North America and had not lived up even close to where they expected it to be in terms of box office numbers. What does that mean for its potential sequel?

Terminator Salvation was one of my most anticipated films of the year. Unfortunately, it did not live up to the hype for myself and many other Terminator fans, let alone the critics who tore it apart in the plethora of negative reviews found online and in print everywhere.

While the movie is still just opening in many of the foreign markets, its financial performance in theaters is a clear disappointment for director McG and the studio. I wonder if they’re still considering forming a trilogy out of it…

As we near the release of the highly anticipated Terminator Salvation, troubled MGM Studios is hoping to get into the Terminator game by positioning itself to take over the distribution of Terminator 5, part two in the planned new trilogy.  Yep, shock waves are being felt around Hollywood, since Warner Bros. and Sony are distributing next week’s Terminator Film.

We’re now less than a month away from the release of Terminator Salvation, the latest installment in one of the most successful sci-fi franchises of all time. Fans are gearing themselves up for an explosive time at the theater, expecting plenty of bang for their buck, and I’m sure the final product won’t let them down.

MTV had the opportunity to speak with Terminator Salvation director, McG, about the new ending of the film and the possibility of a sequel (or two).

The conclusion of this fourth installment in the Terminator franchise has been a long-running issue for the filmmakers and studio executives. It started when an early leak revealed the controversial big-twist ending of the movie which made the people behind the film very displeased. As a result, the ending was completely re-done to avoid rampant spoilers.