Rights to the heavily-maligned “Terminator” franchise were up for auction these last few weeks and a winner has emerged, but its not who you think. Though Lionsgate (who owns some of the DVD back catalogue)and Sony Pictures had both put in separate bids and then joined forces to combine their efforts, both companies were thwarted by the hedge fund company Pacificor who won ownership of the “Terminator” rights for a cool $29.5 million dollars.
Ironically, this is the same hedge fund that the Halycon Company — the former owners of the “Terminator” series before they went bankrupt — sued for fraud and alleged extortion, bribery, and demanded $30M in damages in a lawsuit they filed while going belly up. But Halycon were evidently just looking to survive. Part of their agreement was waiving the huge debts that Halcyon owes them (and with other creditors) so obviously it was in their best interest to make that kinda deal with the devil.
Though Pacificor stopped just short of $30 million, sources told Deadline that they were willing to keep going so Sony/Lionsgate had no shot. Halcyon will evidently receive $5 million for every Terminator movie made from now on, as well as retain revenue streams from the movies “Terminator 3” and “Terminator: Salvation,” so in a way they’re sitting pretty. Surely they’ll now drop their lawsuit and can probably crawl out from under insolvency.
So is Pacificor going to turn into a filmmaking company? Seems doubtful. They can sit on those rights and let some of the DVD backend make profit. They could also license the characters out to a studio and still retain rights or sell it wholesale for a profit, but at this point it feels doubtful a studio will purchase the franchise for more than $30 million. What does seem possible is the unlikely hood of a “Terminator 5” film anytime soon and in fact we could be several years away (and there’s probably even a less chance of McG being involved).