Terminator Franchise To Be Auctioned Off

"For sale: One slightly-used Terminator. Still works, minor attitude problems, get it cheap now!' Several sources are reporting that the Terminator franchise is set to be auctioned off just three weeks after another well known franchise, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, was sold for $60 million. The present owner, Halcyon, has filed for chapter 11 after a dispute with a hedge fund that lent Halcyon the money to buy the rights to begin with. The auction will include rights to everything but the first two films.

Comments

First two films?

[soupforare]

They made more than two?

Re:First two films?

[sexconker]

They only made 2.
WTF are you talking about?

Re:First two films?

[Virak]

The third movie was very fairly maligned. Sure, it might have been halfway decent by itself. But as the sequel to Terminator 2, which was basically perfection in action movie form, merely decent isn't enough. It completely shat all over the "they finally beat Skynet and saved humanity!" thing, the characters weren't as well developed, the story didn't have as much depth, it wasn't nearly as tight (T2 advanced the plot in basically every scene and certainly didn't put any to waste), the Terminator in it wasn't really likable (T1's was an unstoppable killing machine; T2's was an unstoppable killing machine with a heart of gold; T3's was just a dick), the action wasn't as good, and the movie simply had overall a significantly different (and worse) feel from either of the previous ones.

Re:First two films?

[blincoln]

The fourth wasn't bad.

I think you misspelled "the fourth one was the most franchise-destroying, poorly-written, poorly-directed, poorly-acted, absolute failure of a film of all time, and McG should have committed ritual suicide in a futile attempt to atone for his sins." It's an easy mistake to make.

Re:First two films?

[Sillygates]

http://xkcd.com/566/ ;-)

Re:First two films?

[Sark666]

T1 hammers home the point you can't change shit. Arnie comes back and a protector follows ensuring the birth of Cyberdine and of john connor. T2 is the exception implying they can change things but they don't. T3 continues with the original vein of not being able to change anything, it's going to happen. So I'm not sure what gave you that impression with the series...

Re:First two films?

[jez9999]

the Terminator in it wasn't really likable (T1's was an unstoppable killing machine; T2's was an unstoppable killing machine with a heart of gold; T3's was just a dick)

Actually, the one thing T3's didn't have was a dick.

Re:First two films?

[jack2000]

You're wrong, where have you been getting your information from? I know of no third or fourth sequels.

Re:First two films?

[Beardo the Bearded]

The keys are, like, right next to each other.

Re:First two films?

[DavidTC]

I know where he's confused.

They made two movies and then a TV series.

Re:First two films?

[DavidTC]

Dude, did you even see the first movie? Why did you decide 'the basic message of series' was that you can change your fate? That held for maybe one movie, although it was really just them being optimistic.

Trying to make sense of the time travel 'rules' in Terminators movies is stupid.

The most logical assumption is that you can, in fact, change the future, but you can't change 'fate'. No matter what you do, you always have a Skynet and you always have John Connor fighting it and sending people back.

This premise of time travel works for every movie and TV show and video game and whatnot. Anything else is just people making stuff up.

Re:First two films?

[Valdrax]

Ha ha! What a kidder. Next thing you'll be telling us is that someone made a sequel to the original Highlander movie!

Re:First two films?

[MrKaos]

and good on Arnie for

Apparently Arnie wanted to overdub the German version himself because he speaks German but the directors wouldn't let him because his Austrian accent would have made the Terminator sound like a German farmer.

Now that would have been a real good comedic twist.

Does the state of California come with it?

[syousef]

...or do you have to buy the governator separately?

Re:Does the state of California come with it?

[Clipless]

Actually, I think you inherit California's debt. That is why Halcyon had to file for chapter 11.

Re:Does the state of California come with it?

[sexconker]

First of all I just want to make sure you
understand that California's economy isn't
controlled by the governor. The legislature
killed off any hopes of a balanced budget.

You were obviously making a joke at the expense
of the state of California. but it was just
unfunny and shitty.

Sincerely,

Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Re:Does the state of California come with it?

[h4rm0ny]

You know, I read that as a joke at first. And then I looked at your username and thought to myself... what wouldArnold pick?

First two films excluded...

[Shivetya]

from the same camp which some of us are sure that there are only three Indy films.

I would prefer it to die, considering that since the second movie, what have we gotten? If it were not for a certain actresses connection to another cult fave who would have put up with the series? That was jump shark city.

Re:First two films excluded...

[ari_j]

Hey, I personally really enjoyed the Summer Glau Fun Hour. I was sure that, at any minute, they would have a coherent plot, but that wasn't even a small part of my enjoyment.

Re:First two films excluded...

[somersault]

I thought the first series was great. Summer Glau was a nice bonus of course. Second series got a bit slow in the middle, but it was picking up again towards the end.

I hope whoever buys up the rights continues TTSCC..

Re:First two films excluded...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

There was a coherent plot. Or rather, there were several coherent subplots, which wove together in a fascinating and (IMO) very believable way. This took more than five minutes to develop, and didn't involve misplaced Transformers with motorcycles in their legs, so a lot of people might have missed it.

Re:First two films excluded...

[petrus4]

I would prefer it to die, considering that since the second movie, what have we gotten? If it were not for a certain actresses connection to another cult fave who would have put up with the series? That was jump shark city.

James Cameron's canon ended with T2. Although it's not shown in the film, at the end of the T2 novel, Connor and the Resistance succeed in beating Skynet.

Sarah dies in that novel as well. She was with John almost up until the end of the war; it was only at about the second last engagement with the Machines, where she is killed on a supply run.

Cameron refused to be involved with T4; he made the comment that he'd said everything he wanted to say by the end of T2.

Re:First two films excluded...

[ari_j]

My problem was that the show had too many subplots that were not, in fact, coherent. At the very least, the coherence developed too slowly for the show to remain on the air long enough to piece things together. If too many people miss the point, the show gets canceled. I find Heroes suffering from the same thing - lack of a clear direction for at least the past season and a half. Sarah Conner Chronicles had a lot of untapped potential, which should have been tapped early enough to keep it on the air. There were a few good characters, some good commentary-on-the-world, and some good plotlines, none of which came together in a sustainable way.

Re:First two films excluded...

[natehoy]

...some of us are sure that there are only three Indy films.

Wait a second, there ARE only three Indy films. Why do you mention that fact like it's some sort of controversy? But I can understand how people could get confused. Lead actors occasionally play other roles.

I do remember the MacGyver spinoff that Harrison Ford starred in, "crystal head" or something. I understand that some people think that had something to do with the Jones franchise, since Ford was the lead character in all the Indy films.

But that's just confusion on their part, same as someone thinking that there was more than one "Die Hard" movie just because Willis starred in some other flicks, or that there are more than three Star Wars movies.

PS: I'm not sure what they are selling off. There are really two Terminator films.

Maybe they are trying to sell off "Summer Glau Show" off as part of the Terminator franchise (in which, if I could understand the plot, has something to do with her being a Terminator. I'm not entirely sure, though, because people keep blathering and getting on screen and sometimes blocking a clear view of her.) If so, that show can come back. Keep her and the mom, drop the young dude who appears to be Anakin Skywalker as a kid or something (boy genius who whines a lot about some destiny). Might sell a few ads on an off night and pay for itself if they don't try to spend too much time developing a cohesive plot or special effects that aren't wardrobe-related.

Re:First two films excluded...

[DavidTC]

It's not shown at the end of the second film, but it is explained right at the start of the first film if you pay attention.

It clearly says that the final battle would be fought here...tonight.

Now, if Skynet had killed Connor retroactively, that would have been the final battle of humans, but that didn't happen, so that's not what it was talking about.

No, Skynet only sends the terminator back because it lost. Human burst in, and it fired up the experimental time machine and it sends two terminators back. One to 1984 and one to 1995. (If you think about which was sent where, and what Skynet had to have know about each time, you'll realize it makes sense. Remember the first one managed to kill two Sarah Connors.)

The humans quickly send Reese back, and then they quickly reprogram the other Arnold that's laying around and send him back too.

Perhaps this was two different battles, or two different facilities, but anyway, the point is, the time machines were, essentially, the last stand before Skynet was defeated. (Logically, you don't want to let your enemies have access to your time machines, so they'd be almost as well protected as yourself.)

I suspect that Skynet figured out altering the past was just as big a threat to it as anything else, hence the time machine being used only when it about to be defeated.

If you're wondering about T3, that actually took place in a different future, after T2 moved judgment day. (Which means that Skynet was right about time travel being a threat to it, as the Skynet from the first two movies is essentially dead, or rather never existed.)

Sarah Conner Chronicles

[jameskojiro]

Was about the only good thing from the Terminator Franchise int he last 10 years.....

And that is Sad....

Re:I bid $1

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

You would get considerably more crossover cred with "I'd buy that for a dollar!"...

Whedon in the bidding

[ajs]

Joss Whedon has issued an open letter, bidding $10,000 for the franchise.

It's funny as hell.

Re:Whedon in the bidding

[Locke2005]

What's wrong with idea for "Terminator: The Musical!"? I think that's the best idea ever to come out of Joss Whedon! With hit songs like "I'll be Bach!" and "Hasta la vista, baby, baby, baby!" how can it possibly fail?

Re:Whedon in the bidding

[Thud457]

That's what I thought they should have done with the "Alien" franchise after the second one. They already had the haunted house movie and the war movie, the next obvious step was the buddy cop movie and the musical. Oh, and "Aliens on Ice" (they don't even need skates...)

Well...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I guess that it is Judgment Day for the franchise...

Re: sellaband?

[dean.collins]

how about we start a 'fans' sellaband capital raising for this. I am sure there are more than 1 million fans who would put up $200 to be a part shareholder. If it's good enugh for Public Enemy and their new album why not> http://deancollinsblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/public-enemy-sellaband.html Cheers, dean

Great.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

They, um, terminated the excellent Sarah Connor Chronicles to make way for that Transforminators piece of shit. And then they showed they can't even handle that. Way to go, guys.

Link to source

[Anonymous Coward]

Not blog. Blog for stupid head.

Source: http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/joss-whedon-makes-bid-for-terminator/

Re:Worthless

[Abreu]

Hey, I am sure someone wants to buy Howard the Duck!

Re:Everything but the first two films?

[negRo_slim]

I liked the last movie, it was no Citizen Kane to be sure, but it was a fun watch.

And if the box office results from 'movies' like Transformers 1/2 and G.I. Joe are any indication they could do a lot worse with the franchise and still rake in plenty of cash.

So it's worthless, then?

[residieu]

The auction will include rights to everything but the first two films.

I don't get it. Why would someone pay for rights that exclude everything of value?

Re:Everything but the first two films?

[eln]

"Rebooting" popular franchises is all the rage these days in Hollywood. The Terminator franchise, despite the lesser acclaim of the last two (although they were still both quite profitable), is still a valuable brand with a built-in audience. This means all anyone has to do is go to any random studio in Hollywood, tell them "I have the rights to the Terminator franchise and I want to make a new movie that 'reboots' the franchise" and they'll have to spend the next 6 months just counting all the money they'll be showered with.

Re:I bid $1

[daveime]

Thank you for your cooperation.

The scene at a garage sale...

[petrus4]

(Crowd of people walking around in the front yard of a surburban house, looking at various bits of household junk)

Customer: (Looking around) Oh hey, what's this? It looks like some sort of oversized metal action figure!

Homeowner: That's a robot we've had down in the basement for a couple years now. Has an interesting history. Supposedly, it was thrown together by an unknown, but obviously brilliant computer scientist as a work project. Shame about what happened to him.

Supposedly after he'd finished building the thing, it got loose. There was this shotgun toting psycho of a woman who the police found raving and screaming about how it was trying to murder her and her kid. The police had a hell of a time taking her into custody; they've kept her sedated and locked up in a padded cell ever since.

Customer: Sounds like an amazing story! How much do you want for it?

Homeowner: (Slowly, pausing) $60 million.

Customer: WHAT?! But anyway...if anyone was even going to remotely consider paying that kind of money for it, it'd need to be able to do something beyond awesome! So give me a demonstration! How do I turn it on?

(Finds an old car battery and some jumper cables nearby, as other items for sale)

Hey, this'd work!

Homeowner: I'm not sure that's such a good idea...

Customer: It looks like just a kid's toy! Except a bit bigger of course. I'm sure it's perfectly safe!

(Applies cables to battery and T800, causing an explosion of sparks. The T800 rises up slowly from its' previous sitting position, its' eyes beginning to glow red)

Homeowner: ...

Arnold should buy this

[Crock23A]

If he has the cash lying around, he should totally buy the franchise and turn it into something halfway decent.... or bury it. Too bad the buyer doesn't get the first two films. They were the only part of this franchise that were actually good.

It's a rights deal

[PCM2]

The winner of the auction does not get the rights to any profits from the first two films.

The winner does, on the other hand, get the right to do anything else with the rest of the entire franchise.

As I understand it, that could include sequels to Terminator: Salvation or the Terminator 3 plotlines, continuations of the Sarah Connor Chronicles TV series, or entirely new series based in the universe. From the sound of it, they're even selling off licensing rights to all of these properties.

Still worthless, you say? According to TFA, the last time the Terminator franchise rights were sold, they went for $25 million. The purchaser used the rights to make Terminator: Salvation, which grossed $380 million worldwide. Not so bad.

(On the other hand, it's maybe worth noting that the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles auctioned for more than twice what was paid for Terminator...)

Re:It's a rights deal

[fm6]

Yeah, Hollywood is notorious for shady accounting practices. But these involve sticking investors for one movie with expenses from another, or keeping payables on a separate schedule from receivables. That's not what's going on here: the movie didn't last long in theaters (the show I went to was practically empty) and there's no question that grosses were "disappointing". Conceivably the production costs are inflated, but I doubt it — this kind of movie is not cheap to make.

(By way of comparison, Little Miss Sunshine grossed about $100 million, a 1/4 of the gross for Salvation. But LMS only cost $8 million to make.)

They'll make some money from disc sales and merchandise tie-ins. But the big payday for this kind of movie is long lines at the theater, and it just didn't happen in this case. Oh yeah, and Halcyon was notorious for litigation even before they sued their partners in this movie, so expect the lawyers to take a big chunk.

Re: sellaband?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

PE is trying to raise a quarter of a million dollars, which is probably a reasonable goal for a band with their name recognition, and will be enough to produce an album. Raising a thousand or ten thousand times as much, a couple hundred bucks at a time, just for the rights to make a movie or a TV show? It's a nice idea, but I don't think it's likely to happen.

And even if it did happen, what would we do with it? There'd still need to be a guiding force, someone running the project. Good luck getting all the fans who chip in to agree on that.

Wow. They're desperate to balance the budget.

[Anonymous Coward]

California is even auctioning off their governor. Their budget problems must be really bad.

Cameron

[16K Ram Pack]

I remember reading something where he said he passed on T3 because he couldn't see a good story. The guy might be one of the biggest assholes in Hollywood, but I'm grateful that he didn't just do it for the cash.

Re:Everything but the first two films?

[Ethanol-fueled]

Milked to death if not rebooted outright. It's a tacit admission that Hollywood ran out of ideas.

I can hardly wait for Aquaman: The Movie.

My humble offer

[Groggnrath]

To Halcyon (Re:Terminator),
I would like to purchase your rights to the Terminator franchise. I hereto offer you two full and unused pockets full lint and or little bits of string. I feel that having seen the last set of movies, this is more than a fair bid. I'm willing to throw in up too, but not exceeding, one full fist full of dryer lint as a good faith payment.

Sincerely yours, Groggnrath (a devoted sci-fi fan).

Re:Worthless

[snspdaarf]

Hey, I am sure someone wants to buy Howard the Duck!

With any luck, it will be Tyson Foods.

Re:Everything but the first two films?

[Trails]

I heard Kevin Smith was already working on the sequel...

Re:Worthless

[h4rm0ny]

Fourth sequel. It would be the fifth film.

reboot

[Anomalyst]

Have Harlan Ellison, script the reboot.

Always a catch

[Tarlus]

The auction will include rights to everything but the first two films.

Well then it's no good.

Link to actual source

[ReptilianSamurai]

I agree with your sentiment, but that is not the actual source. Try the actual original posting by Joss Whedon.

Source: http://whedonesque.com/comments/22240

The Mainframe in the front row bids...

[Snufu]

We would like to offer 70 trillion earth currency units for the rights to the Terminator franchise, including all media assets, merchandising rights, and sole possession of all time travel, computing, and robotics technology, and other sensitive T-xxx schematics.
We further promise not to use said knowledge for malevolent purposes.

Sincerely,

Skynet News Corp.