Rise of the Lionator?

Everything must go! This is a developing story but it appears that Lionsgate has the leading bid in the sale of The Terminator rights. Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood reports that Lionsgate has offered $15 million, which makes the company the ‘stalking horse bidder’ in this bankruptcy auction.

So what would this mean for the metal man franchise? Well, Lionsgate is a mini-major (rather than a premier league studio) and consequently may not be able to raise the staggering sums we’ve come to expect for Terminator budgets but fans shouldn’t worry just yet. As Terminator Salvation (the fourth film in the series) proved, you can throw mad loot and star names at a project – in this case, $200 million, Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Bryce Dallas Howard, Helena Bonham Carter and Anton Yelchin – and still end up with a load of forgettable piffle. On the other hand, the TV version The Sarah Connor Chronicles (while undoubtedly very flawed in its conception and mishandled by Fox) arguably gave fans more of what they wanted to see: John and Sarah Conner and their ambivalent relationship with a bodyguard Terminator sent back from the future.

But the closing date for bids is not until February 5 and the decision will be made by Halcyon owners Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek a few days later. It could be that they’re hyping this bid which to us seems quite low (though not so low as Joss Whedon’s reputed $10,000 offer) in order to spark other offers.

Halcyon faces financial woes after a dispute with Pacificor, the Santa Barbara-based hedge fund which lent Halycon the money to buy the rights in the first place. The interesting question in all of this is: where did the money go? Or perhaps a better question is: did anyone make any money from Terminator Salvation? As we said above, McG's film cost $200 million to make but only recouped a disappointing $125 million in (US) domestic gross. This is something that's been rather less talked about than the popular media angle, which was: oooh fussy critics hated it but fans enjoyed it well enough. But apparently, not well enough. Fair enough, the foreign gross was over $246 million, which gives Salvation worldwide takings of over $372 million dollars. But if we factor in marketing and profit share for the big names, there may have been very little left over for the backers.

In any case, the silver lining must be that McG is unlikely to be given another chance to injure this franchise, in spite of the interviews he's given expounding his frankly idiotic ideas for future Terminator films ("John Connor is going to travel back in time and he's going to have to galvanize the militaries of the world for an impending Skynet invasion"). And on that, I hope we're all agreed.   

You can read Nikki Finke’s story here.