TERMINATOR Film Rights are Up For Sale!
The rights to the Terminator franchise are up for sale again! The first thing that crossed my mind when I read this, was "Please let someone buy them that won't let McG direct the next film." The current owners who are selling the right off are, Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek. The acquired the franchise back in 2007 for $25 million dollars, and then they produced Terminator Salvation, which I thought was a terrible representation of Terminator. The producing duo are currently working their way through bankruptcy, which is why they are selling. The LA times reports:
Anderson and Kubicek's Halcyon Holding Group has engaged financial advisory firm FTI Capital Advisors, pending bankruptcy court approval, to "evaluate strategic alternatives," according to a statement. Since Halcyon's only valuable asset is the Terminator rights, any deal would involve an investment in, or outright sale, of them.
So they are also open to the idea of selling a part of the rights as well. They are now going to start contacting various film studios to see if they're interested and what they are willing to offer. Kevin Shultz who is the senior managing director at FTI says:
We're going to be contacting a variety of studios and independent companies. We think the values are considerably in excess of the purchase price.
There is no doubt a studio will pick up the rights to the franchise, it's huge! And I'm sure we will see more Terminator movies. Since Terminator was born in 1984, the franchise rights have changed hands more than any other major Hollywood film franchise.
When the first movie came out, production company Hemdale Film Corp. owned a 50% interest and director James Cameron sold the other half to producing partner and future wife Gale Anne Hurd for $1.
Carolco Pictures, owned by producers Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna, bought Hemdale's stake in 1990 for $10 million and released "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" the next year. In 1997, after Carolco went bankrupt, they started a new venture, C2 Pictures, which bought their old company's stake at auction for $7 million and the remaining 50% from Hurd for $7 million.
In 2007, Kassar and Vajna sold the rights to novice producers Anderson and Kubicek. They now claim that the Terminator rights are worth more than $60 million dollars. That's more than double what they paid for it. I can only hope that whoever picks buys the rights to the Terminator franchise next will develop a great film out of it, and not continue down the path that McG has placed it on. Lets just move forward with the franchise like Terminator Salvation never happened. What do you all think!
Source: LA Times