May 9, 2007 - C2 partners Mario Kassar and Andy Vajna have sold all rights to the Terminator franchise for an undisclosed amount to The Halcyon Company, a new group which is planning to fast-track three more installments of the popular cyborg film series.
According to Variety, Terminator 4 will be first up for the newly formed and privately funded company headed up by entrepreneurs Victor Kubicek and Derek Anderson. T4 already has a script in place by T3 writers John Brancato and Michael Ferris, and according to the trade paper, "has been crafted as the first leg in a trilogy." T3 producer Moritz Borman will be running the production of the fourth film, with Kubicek and Anderson co-producing. Erstwhile PolyGram Films marketing president Peter D. Graves will serve as executive producer and oversee marketing for the film.
T4 of course follows on the heels of creator-writer-director James Cameron's hugely successful first two installments in the franchise, which helped launch Arnold Schwarzenegger to superstardom as the titular robot. The third film was directed by Jonathan Mostow. The fourth film is said to pick up with series hero John Connor in his thirties and leading humanity against the machines that have devastated the Earth with nuclear weapons.
Halcyon plans to "reinvent the franchise with new cast and plotlines," taking a cue from the recent trend of "rebooting" franchises like Star Trek, Batman, and James Bond. In addition to the film rights to Terminator, the company now owns all future merchandising and licensing ventures, including "any participation" that Kassar and Vajna would have gotten for the licensing of "The Sarah Connor Chronicles," a TV show spin-off that will likely get picked up by Fox.
No cast or director have been signed on to T4 yet, but a summer 2009 release is planned. Whether or not Governor Schwarzenegger will return to the franchise that made him for some kind of cameo remains to be seen.
"With T3, we included many incidental details and plot points that, along with the main narrative, set the stage for an entirely new set of interrelated stories covering the future adventures of John Connor and the Terminators," Borman says. "This new Terminator trilogy will build upon the already huge worldwide Terminator fan base, which was both revitalized and expanded with the global success of T3."
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