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.