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Terminator Rights Sold To Surprising Bidder

Ross Miller — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:06:10 +0000

After months of speculation over who would become the new owner of the Terminator franchise, we finally have an answer. And it isn’t the studio you think it is.

Last we reported on the auction for the rights to any Terminator movies, TV shows and any spin-offs, Sony (who handled international distribution on Terminator Salvation) put in a bid that tried to top Lionsgate’s minimum bid of $15 million (plus 5% of future gross receipts). The bankrupt company that owned the Terminator rights, Halcyon Group, valued them at around $70 million but needless to say they didn’t get that.

Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood has the scoop that the Terminator rights auction has ended after a marathon bidding that lasted from 3pm to 8pm yesterday. So that’s five hours of “I have $16 million, do I ...

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Sony Bids On Terminator Franchise

Kofi Outlaw — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:29:12 +0000

Keeping with a February deadline, the auction of Terminator franchise rights is winding down. Last we heard, Lionsgate was the studio that had secured a position as a bottom line buyer, locking in a minimum bid that any other would-be buyer will have to top.

Well, Variety reports that another studio may in fact be trying to top Lionsgate’s bid, and that studio is Sony.

This news comes from a “source close to the bidding” who claims Sony put in its bid right on the Thursday deadline before bidding closed. Lionsgate’s “stalking horse” bid was $15 million for the Terminator rights and a 5% cut of future gross receipts; Sony’s bid hasn’t been revealed yet, but it had to be higher than the $15 million that Lionsgate has locked in. The bankrupt Halcyon Group (which currently owns the ...

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Terminator Franchise Snags a Low Bidder

Kofi Outlaw — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:59:52 +0000

The Terminator franchise rights are currently up for grabs and we’ve been reporting pretty extensively on the whole fiasco, trying to see (and predict) where they’ll ultimately land. Studios and independent buyers have been rumored to be circling the franchise, but the deadline is quickly approaching: Halcyon has to settle the matter by February of this year.

Nikke Finke over at Deadline Hollywood is now reporting that Halcyon Holding Group (which currently owns the franchise rights and put out last summer’s Terminator Salvation) has attracted a bargain-bin bidder, so that at least their worst case scenario won’t look so dire anymore.

The official term is a “stalking horse bidder” and in layman’s terms it’s a party which is chosen by a bankruptcy firm to hold a fixed low ...

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Terminator’s Fate to be Decided by February

Scott Miller — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:19:53 +0000

The Halcyon Co., current owners of the rights to the Terminator franchise and the production company behind Terminator Salvation, issued a statement saying they expect to successfully auction off the franchise rights by February 1, 2010.

Check out the statement from Halcyon that Variety managed to snag:

“Over the past few weeks, Halcyon and its professionals have engaged in in-depth discussions and negotiations with numerous serious potential buyers, including several major movie studios… In addition, a number of attractive refinancing alternatives have also been presented. In order to maximize the value of a transaction for all of the company’s creditors and stakeholders, we are fully analyzing all these options.”

Huh. Sounds like something a person with a college degree would say to his knuckle-cracking bookies.

Anyway, we here at Screen Rant have ...

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Fox Is Letting Dollhouse Go

Bruce Simmons — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:34:35 +0000

The headlines all around the internet are spreading word the word that Fox has canceled Dollhouse. To be more specific, Fox has chosen not to order any more episodes beyond the first 13 episodes of Dollhouse‘s second season, sealing the fate of the Joss Whedon-helmed show.

Despite being overwhelmed in fan-voting websites by The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Fox went with renewing Dollhouse for a 2nd season, ignoring the cry for more Sarah Connor. Of course the popular theory is that Fox feared yet another long-term public lashing from how they handled the much superior Firefly space western of Joss’ years prior.

Fox letting go of Dollhouse isn’t a surprise. The show confused or creeped out fans in the first season with its core premise. However, when the show runners had a chance to capitalize on ...

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Terminator Rights Hit Auction Block; Whedon Bids 10K

Kofi Outlaw — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:35:57 +0000

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 ...

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Dollhouse Season 2 Discussion

Bruce Simmons — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:37:36 +0000

Joss Whedon has been making the rounds in various media forms and chatting about the upcoming 2nd season of Dollhouse. I’ll talk touch on some generic issues then a little bit later. Beware, there’s a section marked spoilers, you can pass over that part and onto more good stuff with the skip/jump link I’ve included.

Joss truly didn’t expect to be working on a 2nd season of Dollhouse, but all the non-traditional ratings numbers such as DVR viewing added up and the idea that fans will gravitate to the show in such a way that the revenue stream from DVD sales and such won’t dry up were all factors that nudged Fox towards renewing the show.

Even though some of the writers, Sarah Fain and Elizabeth Craft, that worked on season 1 headed off to work on the ...

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Tubey Awards For The 2008-09 TV Season

Bruce Simmons — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:51:44 +0000

This year, Bravo’s Television Without Pity, Access Hollywood, TV Guide and MediaWeek joined forces and had a massive fan vote session called the Tubey Awards and they’ve recently announced their Tubey Award winners! The system works where fans vote on different categories of things that are television related and from what I understand, the votes were in the millions.

It’s rather telling, and yet not very surprising, what people are trying to tell the networks. Below are the top category winners from the 2008-09 season that folks voted on for the annual Tubey Awards.

Best Programming Trend: Single camera sitcoms.

Here’s one we’ll love:

The Worst Programming Trend: “Too many non-scripted series.” (Can you say Reality TV? I knew you could!) Another surprise top placer in this category was “Networks not aggressively programming Saturdays.”

Worst Renewals: According to Jim, Wife Swap ...

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2009 Scream Award Nominations

Ross Miller — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:37:08 +0000

The nominees have been announced for the fourth annual Scream Awards, held every year by Spike TV. The decisively more “fan-friendly” award ceremony (compared to the Oscars) honors films from the sci-fi, fantasy, horror and comic-book genres of movies, TV shows and comic books. The awards are described as, “the first and only global event of its kind,” to honor those genres.

The Scream 2009 nominees were chosen by the Advisory Board of Hollywood and Genre Leaders, a list which this year includes the likes of Wes Craven, Roland Emmerich, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Eli Roth and Zack Snyder, plus many more. The event will be taped on Saturday, October 17th this year at The Greek Theater in Los Angeles, and will air on Spike TV ten days later on Tuesday, October 27th (check for local times).

Along with the ...

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Weekly TV Wrap Up – June 11, 2009

Bruce Simmons — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:42:46 +0000

Today in Screen Rant’s weekly TV Wrap Up, we have some great casting news for 24, we’ll be talking about David Carradine’s appearance in Fox’s new show Mental and we also have some Heroes casting news, the possibility that My Name Is Earl may be getting new legs, some news on Ghost Whisperer, The Sarah Connor Chronicles coming to DVD and a bit about Futurama‘s, err, future.

We’ll wrap it up with ratings from last week. This week in the ratings section, I thought I’d try something new and toss in some cable viewer numbers.

24 Gets More Cast Members

I’ve previously reported that Freddie Prinze Jr. had joined 24 and now Fox has added more cast members to the popular action series.

The actress I’m most excited about ...

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Fox Announces Fall TV Lineup & Squirms On Sarah Connor

Bruce Simmons — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:50:25 +0000

Yesterday (Monday, the 19th) Fox announced it’s upcoming Fall lineup today and we will be seeing some of Screen Rant’s favorites like House, Lie To Me, Bones, Fringe & Dollhouse return this fall. These are the shows we here at Screen Rant are more focused on.

The news in and about the industry this last weekend was swirling in a dance on what was being renewed and canceled. Specifically, some were focused on the fates of Dollhouse and The Sarah Connor Chronicles and why one show was given the axe, and the other given a reprieve.

For the upcoming Fall season House and Lie To Me will be on Mondays. Bones leads into Fringe on Thursday nights. Dollhouse stays on Friday with two 30-minute comedies as lead-ins.

At the mid-season point in the schedule, 24 ...

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TV Renewal And Cancellation Notes To Date

Bruce Simmons — Mon, 18 May 2009 05:36:41 +0000

Though the networks are making official statements in the coming week, news is coming out slowly but surely on what is going to happen with shows like Dollhouse, Chuck, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Scrubs among others.

Here’s the news that’s come out of this weekend about some of our favorite shows… after the break.

Dollhouse

As we reported Friday night, Dollhouse is renewed on a limited budget, for 13 episodes.

Chuck

Chuck has been picked up for at least 13 episodes. Yet, there is a “but” in that good news.

There will be budget concessions involved. It includes cutting back on the episodes and supporting cast members, possibly eliminating one actor altogether and it looks like two of its staff writers will be let go.

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Weekly TV Wrap Up – May 7th 2009

Bruce Simmons — Thu, 07 May 2009 16:26:30 +0000

This is the weekly TV update coming at you yet again. Today I chat about how Numbers has survived on Friday nights, I share my suspicions on what will happen with Chuck on NBC and I celebrate a bit about Fringe on Fox.

I’ll also touch on how the new Wolverine movie has already had its TV rights secured while I tell you about a couple of upcoming Sci-Fi Channel marathons, and then I’ll close with some depressing inclinations about Dollhouse and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. At the very bottom, past my ratings chart, I actually make a suggestion about an episode of Criminal Minds that I suggest hunting down to watch. (Yes, I make a recommendation.)

Let’s get on with it, shall we?

Numbers Survives On Fridays

Even though the viewing audience does not like programmable personalities, they sure do seem to like Numbers on CBS because it keeps trudging along ...

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The Friday Night Death Slot: Sarah Connor Chronicles & Dollhouse

Bruce Simmons — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 19:44:03 +0000

After its season (series?) finale, The Sarah Connor Chronicles seems to be in a gray area. The ratings for the April 10th finale brought in only 3.6 million viewers. That’s a far cry from its premiere episode that attracted almost 19 million sets of eyeballs. After a lot of conjecture, mostly from watching the ratings drop over the last two years, most feel that the show is looking at its demise.

For reasons that are beyond our own logic, even though TSCC was bringing in an average of over 11 million viewers on Mondays, Fox pretty much set the fate of the show when they moved it to Friday nights. There, in its 2nd season it received an average of 4.7 million viewers.

The above numbers seem to reference all viewers and are from ...

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Young John Connor To Take On Freddy Krueger?

Rob Keyes — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:40:52 +0000

In January, we found out officially that there was going to be a reboot of the classic horror series, A Nightmare on Elm Street. Since then, we’ve heard some updates regarding the plot of the film and in recent weeks, we’ve been seeing steady news about casting decisions.

The major casting news came just over a week ago when it was confirmed that Watchmen star Jackie Earle Haley will be playing the infamous Freddy Krueger in the remake. Adding to the cast, Thomas Dekker who plays John Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, is reportedly in final negotiations to play the role of Jesse in A Nightmare on Elm Street.

According to ShockTillYouDrop! who broke the news, the Jesse character is “a jock on the swim team.” Dekker would be ...

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Brian Austin Green Campaigns To Be The Green Lantern

Rob Keyes — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:22:10 +0000

Brian Austin Green, who plays Derek Reese in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, wants to play Hal Jordan in the upcoming DC superhero movie and he wants you thoughts on the matter.

Green is most famous for his role on Beverly Hills 90210 but more recently made a splash with his kick-ass role in the Terminator television series. With the second season of the show finishing up this week and no third season announced, the actor is trying to push his way into the movie business with a major role in the next potential DC franchise, The Green Lantern.

Comic Book Resources (CBR) News got a chance to speak with Brian about the role and released the first part of their interview. The conversation opens with CBR asking Brian what’s going on ...

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Solved: Dollhouse – The Mystery Of The 13th Episode

Bruce Simmons — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 04:48:10 +0000

So… what, exactly, is the deal with Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse?

Thursday and Friday, the Internet went nuts with worry that the number of episodes the Fox Television Network is said to be airing for Dollhouse was being short changed. The info distilled into a hyperbole of rumors saying Dollhouse was canceled because the season was being cut short. The truth of the matter is that Fox paid for 13 episodes, but only planned on airing 12.

Which makes us wonder: What’s up with that?

The Dollhouse History

June 4th 2008, Screen Rant reported that Fox was going to give Whedon a 7 episode run of Dollhouse, without airing a pilot for the show. They also gave it a Monday time slot, being the lead-in show for 24.

June 15th 2008, we reported ...

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Weekly TV Update – March 27th, 2009

Bruce Simmons — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:20:38 +0000

Due to technical difficulties beyond my control, the digital dog ate my homework. Or, I had to write this article twice! The digital dog just sounds more light-hearted than what the second line implies. Enough about my woes with technological gremlins.

There wasn’t a ton of news to report or snark on this week, so I had to dig up enough to make this yet another interesting read. Well, at least I think it is! I do have a few snippets that might be spoilers for The Office (Guest appearance) and Lost (Possible finale shoot notes).

Shall we get on with it?

Big Reminder:

The DVD movie, Stargate Ark of Truth will be on Friday night on The Sci-Fi Channel! Don’t forget!

Viewer Numbers From Last Week

As of Wednesday, these are some of the viewer estimates from some shows we like, and some we think you may follow.

The top ...

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Weekly TV Wrap Up – March 12th, 2009

Bruce Simmons — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:39:34 +0000

So what’s happening this week with some of our favorite television shows? I’ll fill you in on the vaporizing ratings for Dollhouse, The Sarah Connor Chronicles and others. I touch on some Supernatural & NCIS casting news and a season ending story development. I then sprinkle some CSI:NY bits and round it out with some Lily cast updates.

Let’s check it out.

Ratings Notes

A sad ratings note: The completely non-advertising supported set of repeats of Jericho on The CW scored a 0 in ratings. A zero. Of course they are Nielsen families, so that means none of them made any sense of it the first time around and they don’t want to deal with it a 2nd time.

Though it hasn’t been officially announced, inside sources are saying Heroes will be renewed for another 18-20 episodes next season.

Knight Rider, on the ...

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Dollhouse & Sarah Connor Ratings Better Than We Think

Bruce Simmons — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 06:28:52 +0000

When we all heard that FOX was going to put The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Dollhouse on Friday nights, we all went ballistic. We know that Friday nights are a death knoll for a show. It’s hard to ignore the fact that when your favorite gets to replace reality skeins Cops, or My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad, it just ain’t good news. Just start saving up for that single season DVD pack. Right?

Well hold your horses on this one folks. There may be a glint of light at the end of the usually very short Friday night tunnel, or is there?

Despite ratings not looking so hot for either The Sarah Connor Chronicles (TSCC) or Dollhouse for Friday nights, the time shifted viewing numbers are giving ...

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