halycon Tagged Articles at Cinematical

When it comes to the Terminator franchise, the future might have begun, but it's sputtered and stalled out. It's not because of Christian Bale rants, McG, or poor reviews but pesky things like rights, loans, and financing. According to The LA Times, the franchise is back in court thanks to Terminator: Salvation producers Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek. They've brought a $30 million dollar lawsuit against Santa Barbara based hedge fund Pacificor, which lent them the money to buy the Terminator rights, and against a former Pacificor employee, Kurt Benjamin, who arranged the whole deal.

Things aren't looking rosy for Anderson and Kubicek, who have been involved in more lawsuits than actual film productions. (Patrick Walsh reported on their feud with MGM back in 2007.) Their Halcyon Company is reportedly strapped for cash, and as they're currently trying to raise money in order to stay in business, Pacificor filed a lien against their other company, Dominion Group, which has froze their Terminator: Salvation earnings, and prevented them from borrowing against them for a fifth film. If the producing pair loses the $30 million lawsuit, and is unable to pay back Pacificor, the hedge fund will win the rights to the Terminator franchise. Anderson and Kubicek insist that they don't owe Pacificor any money on the loan thanks to a February settlement, and that the hedge fund company filed the lien in a "desperate and deliberate attempt to seize ownership and control of the Halcyon entities and of the ['Terminator'] franchise." They claim to have been led astray by Benjamin, who blackmailed and tricked them out of millions in order to help speed up foreclosement on the franchise, and win a piece of it for himself.

It's a big "he said, she said" financial and legal mess, and when you're on the outside looking in, it's impossible to say who is in the right. (Both Halycon and Pacificor sound like companies that would be share holders in Cyberdyne though, don't they?) But one thing is certain -- it's tangled up the Terminator franchise enough that John Connor might not be aiding humanity for a long time.

Last week, a company called Halcyon (which sounds like a name that would be involved with a Terminator film) bought all merchandising, licensing and film rights to The Terminator franchise from former producing partners Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna. At the time, it was reported that Arnold Schwarzenegger would not be involved in the series going forward, what with being a Governor and all. In fact, that's been a known fact for quite awhile now, leading most fans to write off any and all potential future installments. Well, don't whip out the pen just yet; according to a few different sources, Arnold will be back ... just not in the flesh.

First off, Moviehole reports that Schwarzenegger has signed on as Executive Producer for the three Terminator pics Halcyon plans to churn out, so says the Governator's rep Annabelle Gross. Not only that, but The Post Chronicle reports Schwarzenegger has given Halycon permission to use his likeness in the fourth installment. Thus, we'll most likely see some cruddy digitally-created Arnold instead of the real thing. Halycon partner Derek Anderson said, "We'll be using computer altered stock images of Arnold. That way we can span his entire career, from the frightening '80s era Terminator to the ice cool T2 version." If used sparingly, I could see this looking fairly cool. I just hope they don't plan to use digital Arnold as a main character; it's one thing if we see his face, but once they start looping in old dialogue, I might be forced to throw something at the screen. "How many times is he going to say 'I'll be back!?'" Regardless, those who felt a Terminator 4 would be nothing without Arnold should be mildly pleased -- I mean, this is better than a five-second cameo, right?

UPDATE: Clint from Moviehole has emailed Cinematical telling us that this entire story may have been fabricated. According to Clint, Halcyon has told him that none of it is true. His source claims the quotes came from EW magazine in Australia; however, EW doesn't know a thing about it. Of course, should we hear otherwise, we'll let you know.