Terminator 4 - Update

[black_dust]

I think they would be going the way of prostectics to age him through the years (he would need it for that scar anyway) which i think would be lame.

 

[Abraham]

MCG HAS HALVED THE VALUE OF THE TERMINATOR FRANCHISE

I've been thinking about why I don't hate Terminator Salvation like most people do. I don't really love the movie, but I thought it was okay. It was better than Transformers 2 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, for sure. It had some bits I liked, although I think earlier drafts of the script might have created a more compelling movie. But why is it that I remain "Eh, it was okay," while everybody else is just appalled by it?

I think it's because I'm not a huge fan of the Terminator movies. I think Terminator 3 is atrocious, a completely boring daytime remake of the second one, making us wait 90 minutes for what should have been the opening scene. And I think Terminator 2 is kind of a slog - yeah, the action scenes are good, but I don't care about anything else that's happening in that movie. And I don't really like any of the characters. The death of John Connor would have been a blessed relief for me.

The only Terminator movie I honestly like is the first one. It's smart, it's sleek, it's atmospheric, it's about stuff other than pumping bullets into robots. Now, Terminator Salvation doesn't hold a candle, a match or a tiny LED light to this film, but in my opinion it isn't like the two sequels were anywhere on par with the original anyway.

So for me the news that the Terminator franchise rights are probably going to Lionsgate for a paltry 15 million dollars doesn't elicit much of a reaction beyond curiosity. Surely a franchise like this must be worth more?

It's important to note that this deal - a bankruptcy sale in which current rights-holders Halcyon are trying to unload their **** - is only for the rights. Lionsgate wouldn't suddenly own the older movies, just the rights to exploit the characters et al from them. So Lionsgate isn't getting Terminator 2, but simply the ability to make movies that are set in the Terminator 2 world.

Anyway, Halcyon got these rights for $30 million back in 2007, according to Variety, and now they're going for 15. That's half off, which is nuts. And while the headline of the article makes the joke that McG ruined the value of Terminator, the reality is that the failure of The Sarah Connor Chronicles didn't help much either.

The real lesson here? Probably that nobody wants to see a Terminator movie or show without Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that this franchise is likely dead as a blockbuster juggernaut until it gets the old reboot. I am curious what Lionsgate would do with the franchise, though - I can't imagine they buy it just to sit on it. After all, it's not a really good horror movie!

TERMINATOR HEDGE FUND SALVATION

A couple of weeks ago it looked like Lionsgate might end up paying a paltry 15 million dollars for the rights to the Terminator franchise from bankrupturing Halcyon Holding Corp. But according to Nikki 'Frau Blucher' Finke, the auction ended today and Lionsgate didn't win. Neither did Sony. Who got the rights? Pacificor.

No, that's not a Voltron villain. It's a Santa Barbara-based hedge fund that's probably run by a Voltron villain. While a hedge fund sounds like a place where a gopher hides his food, it's actually a big investment group. Or something - I looked it up on Wikipedia and immediately passed out. This story should have been written hours ago, but I was snoozing on my keyboard the whole time.

What's wacky here is that Pacificor originally loaned Halcyon the money to make Terminator Salvation and then Halcyon accused them of extortion and fraud and sued them for 30 million dollars. Since Pacificor just paid 29.5 million I'd say they got off easy! I don't really understand any of this except to view it through the metaphor of spousal abuse - 'Yes, it's terrible when Pacificor pushes me into bankruptcy, but you aren't there to see the look in their eyes when they fund my attempts to make the black hole of screen charisma, Sam Worthington, a star!'

I don't know what this means for the future of the Terminator franchise. And you know what? I kind of don't care.

Details on William Wishers vision for Terminator 5-6

Before the Terminator franchise was sold off a screenwriter by the name of William Wisher scripted a very detailed 24 page film treatment for Terminator 5, and a 4-page concept outline for Terminator 6. For those of you who don't know William Wisher is the same guy that worked with James Cameron on scripting the first two Terminator films.
Here's a guy that has been with Terminator from the beginning and actually has a handle and vision on where the next chapters of terminators should go and how the series should ultimately end. Mike Fleming from Deadline Hollywood has read both of these script treatments, and as a fan of the Terminator series he said that Wisher did a "terrific job with a plot that accepts the storylines from Jonathan Mostow’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and McG’s Terminator: Salvation. Most interestingly, he turns the story back to the core characters and time travel storyline of the first two films that Wisher crafted with Cameron."
Neither of the films plot lines are given away due to the fact the future of the Terminator franchise still hangs in the balance. We posted an article earlier regarding what could end up happening with the franchise, and Lionsgate or Sony could still end up continuing the series. If either studio does end up doing it, whose to say they will bring on Wisher to write the scripts for them. Although if they did end up making more movies they'd be stupid not to hire him! This guy seems to know what he's doing.
Here's what was revealed about Wisher's two Terminator films,

(The film) takes place in a post-apocalyptic battleground, and factors in an element of time travel that allows for Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese to interact beyond their single fateful meeting when he traveled back in time to protect her in the original film. Wisher has created a role for Arnold Schwarzenegger that is as surprising as his shift from villain in the first film, to John Connor’s bodyguard in the second. Schwarzenegger wouldn’t be needed until the final film, which wouldn’t shoot until after he ends his term as California Governor. And who wouldn’t want to see Linda Hamilton back in aerobic top fitness form as Sarah Connor?

There are several new villains, and plenty of firepower. For instance, a swarm of “Night Crawlers,” 4 1/2-foot tall border sentries that are set like mines to spring up out of the ground and ambush rebel fighters with 10 MM pistols built into their wrists, and fingers and feet that are razor sharp. Also fresh off the Skynet assembly line are new shape-shifting cyborgs that can morph together in Transformers-like mode, and are more lethal than anything we’ve seen in previous Terminator installments.

This really isn't very much to go off of, but it gives us a little glimpse of what could possibly be in store for us if Lionsgate or Sony ends up making anymore Terminator films, and bring Wisher on to write them. I wouldn't mind seeing anymore Terminator films as long as they wrap it all up in one or two more movies, and they don't suck.
​

 

[Terminator]

There's a much larger thread dealing with this, one not from 2006.


http://forums.superherohype.com/showthread.php?t=328749&highlight=terminator

 

[Asteroid-Man]

Imagine if they got back Wisher and Cameron...

 

[Lord Blackbolt]

Hey...that idea Wisher has sounds a hundred times better than the idea McG had for T5. I didn't mind Salvation as much as everyone else. In that summer of action movies....this one was one of the better ones IMO. It wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't as terrible as some made it out to be IMO.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

^Watching Salvation the other night though its obvious that McG, despite proclaiming himself a fan, didnt really actually watch the previous Terminator movies.

I knew something was wrong when he got, IMO, the T-600's totally wrong from the start, and it carried over into the movie unfortunately. There were far too many day time scene's, Reese's clear words in T1 were "You stay down by day, but, at night you can move around, you still have to be careful though as HK's use infra-red....." Yet for some reason, Reese in TS says the total opposite "...You dont wanna go out after dark, HK's use infra-red, hunt better at night...."

And this was just one of the many contradictions to the previous movies, god knows were the franchise will go now.

 

[Timstuff]

I felt like the TV series was a much more accurate continuation of the franchise. Salvation was a fun movie in its own right, but when you stack it up with the original 2 there are quite a few inconsistencies.

Personally, if I had things my way I would have just done Terminator 3 as a prequel to the first film set in the future. It would show Judgment day, the rise of the Resistance, and Kyle Reese being sent back during the timeline before the first film. They kind of tried to do that with Salvation a little bit, but they were forced to shoehorn it into T3's timeline which kind of screws things up a bit.

 

[Lord Blackbolt]

^Watching Salvation the other night though its obvious that McG, despite proclaiming himself a fan, didnt really actually watch the previous Terminator movies.

I knew something was wrong when he got, IMO, the T-600's totally wrong from the start, and it carried over into the movie unfortunately. There were far too many day time scene's, Reese's clear words in T1 were "You stay down by day, but, at night you can move around, you still have to be careful though as HK's use infra-red....." Yet for some reason, Reese in TS says the total opposite "...You dont wanna go out after dark, HK's use infra-red, hunt better at night...."

And this was just one of the many contradictions to the previous movies, god knows were the franchise will go now.

Didn't John Connor say something like....this was not the future my mother told me about. The timeline changed somewhat. from what I got from it.

 

[Abraham]

There were far too many day time scene's, Reese's clear words in T1 were "You stay down by day, but, at night you can move around, you still have to be careful though as HK's use infra-red....." Yet for some reason, Reese in TS says the total opposite "...You dont wanna go out after dark, HK's use infra-red, hunt better at night...."

Hearing Reese say those words in Terminator: Salvation was the single most annoying of any movie that year. Just a giant WTF??

Also overall the film lacks structure - setup/payoff - For example it was crying out for a scene of Reese burying Marcus.