'Terminator' Rights Sold for $29.5 Million

We've been following the financial fates of Terminator ever since Halcyon declared bankruptcy late last summer, just two months after the release of Terminator Salvation and only two years after the company acquired those rights for $30 million. Now there's a new sherrif in town, although technically, it's the same sherrif. Pacificor reportedly swooped in at the last moment and upped the ante to $29.5 million. That was significantly more than Lionsgate initial offer of $15 million plus 5% of future grosses. While the grosses may have played out in Halcyon's favor, beggars can't be choosers and they have a lot of debt. Curiously, though, most of that debt is already owed to - wait for it - Pacificor, the company that lent producers Victor Kubicek and Derek Anderson cash so they could buy Terminator in 2007, and now the proud owner of John and Sarah Connor. What a tangled web we weave. Sony looked like the de facto winner on Friday, bidding an undisclosed sum, and since that studio was only the second bidder, it seemed like a good bet at the time. Deadline Hollywood contacted an insider who revealed that Pacificor, not really in the movie business as such, "was willing to pay almost any amount of money for Terminator," although this now raises the issue of which studio the company will deal with for distribution. It probably won't be Warner Bros., though. This is all very strange and I'm not sure I fully understand why Pacificor didn't just absolve Halcyon from its debt - after all, it was Pacificor that forced Kubicek and Anderson into Chapter 11 - for a bigger share of Terminator. That might have saved the hedge fund firm money in the long run. After all, Pacificor has now paid for this property twice in two-and-a-half years. This deal has no bearing on past installments of the series, only future iterations, although it is admittedly very confusing. Terminator was Orion, T2 was Columbia/Tri-Star, T3 went to Warners, and the fourth movie was also released by Warners but produced by a company that got money from a firm that quickly forced the production house to liquidate its assets...back to the same company that loaned it the money in the first place. How in the world is this franchise not on more stable ground after all these years? I'm also a bit discouraged that James Cameron didn't just take some of his Avatar millions and secure the rights to future installments and then pick up a percentage on the past movies, too. Get it all unified and back where it belongs. Even if he never directs a Terminator film again, he could control the story from here on out.

Comments

[Will]

Personally, I was hoping that the people of Green Bay, Wisconsin would bid on it so they could have a stake in something other than the Packers.

And cheese.

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