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

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.

So we just finished telling you why the Summer of 2009 was the season of bad movies. Now, as if to validate our point (sarcasm alert) Variety has just announced that the Summer of ‘09 has set a new record as the highest grossing summer of all time at the U.S. domestic box office.

So there you have it, folks, it’s official: Hollywood has no reason to ever hire good writers, produce good scripts, or offer us anything better at the multiplex than what Michael Bay can half-envision.

Awesome.

Well, the summer movie season is officially over, and while box office earnings are way up, it seems like the quality of the films have actually gone way down.  But for every few badly-written movies (like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Transformers 2, and G.I. Joe–though some will say it’s not that bad), there was a diamond in the rough like District 9.  So why were so many movies so bad in the summer of ‘09, even if they did make a lot of money?  Hint: The Writers Strike!

Before the summer began, I wrote an article about how the 2007 Writers Strike might affect the summer 2009 movies.  I speculated that back in 2007, studios were nervous about how long the writers strike could last, leaving them with a possible lack of films for the fall/winter 2008 and all-important summer 2009 season (early May to late August 2009). To make sure they had big films lined up for Summer ‘09, the studios pushed to have their big-budget scripts quick-finished before the Writers Guild of America’s (WGA) contracts were up in November 2007 and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) in summer of 2008.

For those of you who were upset that Terminator Salvation wasn’t R-Rated, you can now rest easy: a Rated-R version of the film is said to be coming to DVD and Blu-ray soon.

There was quite a bit of back and forth before Terminator Salvation came out about it being PG-13 instead of R-Rated, with some people being extremely upset that it wasn’t a hardcore action movie like the first two were, while others didn’t think the PG-13 rating was an issue. The Director’s Cut of the Terminator Salvation has been labelled by the MPAA as “R” for “some violence,” and, “brief nudity,” with the latter probably being the inclusion of a reported scene of star Moon Bloodgood removing her top that wasn’t included in the theatrical version.

Hollywood’s newest favorite Aussie actor Sam Worthington has a lot on his plate coming up. In addition to being the lead in James Cameron’s long-awaited special-effects extravaganza, Avatar, Worthington will be playing Perseus in the upcoming remake of Clash of the Titans and is rumored for the part of Captain Nemo in Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Wow, I’m just writing about these films and I’m tired.

Anyway, Steve Weintraub at Collider had the chance to sit down with Worthington on the set of Clash of the Titans to talk about some of his upcoming projects and his thoughts on his most recent big-budget film, Terminator: Salvation. Check out some portions of the interview below. For the full interview, make sure to head over to Collider.

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 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…

We have a winner for this great contest:

Thorsteinn Valdimarsson, Iceland

Thanks to everyone for entering!

Don’t forget to enter our Screen Rant giveaway, time is almost up! Thanks to the most excellent Art You Grew Up With we’re running a contest for a cool Terminator Salvation fine art limited edition print, created from original artwork overseen by Terminator Salvation production designer Martin Laing.

This limited edition print is limited to only 100 copies and we’ve got one to give away (which will also be signed by the artist).

In the Wrap Up this Week:

The box office is UP; Robert Downey Jr might still saddle up for Cowboys and Aliens; Lucy beats Nicole Kidman to the Punch; Natalie Portman, Danny McBride and James Franco salute Your Highness; Seann William Scott and Adam Brody are A Couple of Dicks and Chevy Chase dips his toes in the Hot Tub Time Machine and he may return as Fletch.

SPOILER ALERT!!! Most of the debate on Screen Rant’s Terminator Salvation discussion forum has been over what many felt were glaring plot holes in the film’s story. Questions like “How did Skynet know about Kyle Reese?”, “Why does Skynet need a T-800 when it already has Marcus Wright?” or “Since when are T-800s impervious to molten steel?” have popped up again and again and again.

Well, MTV News recently decided to end the trend of circular questioning by taking some of the most debated plot holes straight to Terminator Salvation director McG, who tried his best to plug them with some logical explanation.

This week:
Ben Stiller has no time for Salvation at the box office; George Clooney is a Private Gentleman; Lyndsy Fonseca gets into the Hot Tub Time Machine; Milla Jovovich throws a Stone; Ridley Scott looks for a younger Robin Hood and Kevin Costner makes a western – I’m not kidding.

It appears that Terminator Salvation is going to be (pun alert!) terminated at the box office on its opening weekend, by none other than the family-friendly Ben Stiller comedy/adventure sequel, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.

The final numbers from the Memorial Day long weekend have yet to be tallied, but as of now, it appears that Night at the Museum 2 has a clear lock on the no. 1 spot at the U.S. box office.

Here are the three lucky winners of this great Terminator Salvation giveaway:

• Thomas W. Hicks – Roswell, GA
• Alex Olivo – Lompoc, CA
• Natalie Henderson – Kent, UK

Thanks for entering and keep an eye out for more contests here at Screen Rant!

Thanks to Titan Books we have a pretty sweet giveaway for you. Of course we won’t know until the film actually comes out if Terminator Salvation turns out to be as great as it looks, but I’m optimistic.

So to commemorate the release of the film on May 22nd we’re giving away a triple, triple prize pack.

If you’ve been following Terminator Salvation news, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen updates, or both – Then you’ve probably heard of the little robot franchise feud between McG and Michael Bay, the directors of the two respective films, that’s been going on for a while.

Their back-and-forth ranged from Bay claiming ownership of big robots for his movies to McG wanting to measure his private parts against Bay’s. Putting that aside, let us move on to what’s really important: For John Connor, the savior of humanity against the machines, it doesn’t matter what franchise the robots come from, all of them are his enemy.

One of our most popular new features here at Screen Rant has been the movie spoiler discussion post, where people can feel free to talk about all aspects of a film without having to worry about spoiling it for others. You can check out our Terminator Salvation review but if you want to talk about the movie after having seen it I suggest you do so right here.

So discuss Terminator Salvation below to your heart’s content!

Short version: Terminator Salvation is great for the don’t-expect-much-except-action-out-of-a-summer-movie crowd, not so great if you’re looking for a worthy successor to the first two films.

Screen Rant reviews Terminator Salvation

For the record, I am not a McG hater, nor am I holding Christian Bale’s set meltdown against him. I realize that McG will be forever haunted by the fact he directed Charlies Angels – but I had really high hopes for Terminator Salvation… I wanted it to be great.

Unfortunately, it isn’t.

Today we have a little collection of set photos for the upcoming Clash of the Titans remake. Some are of the awesome set pieces being put together and the newer ones are of Sam Worthington on set and in costume as Perseus.

Sam Worthington is huge in Hollywood and he’s still not ever had a big movie hit theaters! This all changes very soon with the Australian actor playing a major part in this Thursday’s Terminator Salvation, and the starring in James Cameron’s game-changer 3-D epic Avatar this December and he’s currently shooting this upcoming remake of Clash of the Titans.

With the release of the sci-fi blockbuster Terminator Salvation looming, the inevitable first and early reviews for the movie have been made available. And the words are not as positive as you might be hoping or thinking.

There aren’t enough reviews to even call this even a handful, but the three that there are, from Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and a college website - “One of these things is not like the others…” – join together for an overall verdict of “mixed.” Variety and College Times are quite positive (with reservations), but THR is… well, let’s just say less positive about it. Check out some excerpts from the trio of reviews:

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.

The summer season is upon us with big movies X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Star Trek already out in theaters and plenty more on the way. The next biggie for me is Terminator Salvation which opens in just two weeks.

Similar to Trek and Wolverine, there’s already talk of sequels for Terminator Salvation. If the trailers we’ve seen so far for this movie are any indicator, then that talk is certainly justified. However, I’m starting to get just a wee bit worried with the release of this extended trailer.

We all remember the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike that lasted 100 days (from late 2007 to early 2008) and cost Hollywood a couple of billion dollars in lost wages and revenue.  Sure, plenty of movies went into production anyway so there would be at least some new movies, but without writers to do onset re-writes has the quality suffered?

For example, the recent James Bond film Quantum of Solace; writer Paul Haggis turned in the script right before the WGA strike began in November 2007, and the film started shooting soon after.  Production was well underway by the time the strike ended, so it is possible they had some rewrites done, especially if there were any major reshoots.

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.

They call him Wolverine, and he’s the best at what he does, and what he does is shred the box office with berserker rage!  Okay, enough of the Wolverine analogies, but you can’t help but be impressed with the $87 million haul of X-Men Origins: Wolverine!

What a way to start off the summer–with the 2009 box office up over last year, people are still hungry for movies, even in this economy. Fox need not fret any more about the pirated version that leaked out, hurting the box office, because the Hugh Jackman-starrer proved that people love to see movies in the theaters.

Last week, Screen Rant posted about two new TV spots for Terminator Salvation that were geared towards showing off the finished special effects of the film. Today, we have two new spots which also show off some of the cool action (obviously) but also reveal some more character stuff.

Terminator Salvation is directed directed by McG and stars Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, Moon Bloodgood, Bryce Dallas Howard, Common, Helena Bonham Carter and Jadagrace.

Another week means another wrap up.

This week:
We Tell No One about a new remake; Hollywood decides to tell us about The Day They Stole The Mona Lisa; Wolverine’s Danny Huston is beyond the Poseidon adventure; Maria Bello and Craig T. Nelson are Company Men and Amanda Peet Travels with Jack Black.

A few brand new TV spots for Terminator Salvation have made their way online and they are awesome!

We haven’t seen nearly as much marketing for this movie as we have for some of its competitors in the month of May – specifically X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Star Trek but I’m sure they are about to gear up for the release as the summer season kicks off this Friday.

The teasers show off the finished special effects of the movie and emphasize the post-apocalyptic backdrop of the story. There’s a ton of new footage in these short trailers so check these two out:

The folks over at JoBlo and Total Film got an exclusive look at some of the images that will be featured in the Official Movie Companion book for Terminator Salvation.

While the movie doesn’t hit theaters until May 22, the book hits shelves tomorrow, April 28th so you can get an early look at many behind-the-scenes shots and concept art for the fourth installment of the Terminator franchise.

Here are the lucky winners of our Terminator Salvation prequel novel contest:

• Amanda Medina – Hanford, CA
• John Richards – Provo, UT
• Brian Matus – Pawtucket, RI
• Sharon Nikfarjam – Roslyn NY

Thanks to everyone who entered and keep an eye out for our next giveaway!

Lucky you, it’s time for another Screen Rant giveaway. Terminator Salvation is looking better and better – and we’re giving away something that will help you enjoy the film: Four (4) copies of the the official movie prequel novel Terminator Salvation: From the Ashes.

Here’s the official description of Terminator Salvation: From the Ashes (The official movie prequel novel):