'Terminator' Rights Bought by a Hedge Fund

The rights to the Terminator franchise have finally found a new home, according to Reuters. The Halcyon Company, founded in 2007, also bought the rights to the franchise that same year, but ran into financial trouble and announced that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They announced their intent to sell the rights to the franchise back in September 2009 in order to help themselves out of their financial troubles. Yesterday, these rights were bought by Pacificor LLC, a Santa Barbara-based hedge fund.

Their final bid of $29.5 million apparently beat out the much larger Sony and Lionsgate, who had also expressed interest in the franchise. In addition to this, Pacificor will also pay Halcyon an additional $5 million per future film that they release. Reuters doesn't provide a name for their source, nor do they mention if there was any deal set for video game and television rights, either, though Halcyon will continue to receive revenue from Terminator 3 and Salvation, estimated to be worth $10 million. The deal still has to be approved by a judge, which will take place on Wednesday, and Sony and Lionsgate both have the option to object to the offer and prove that their offers were more beneficial to Halcyon, but this is unlikely.

Overall, this sounds like a good deal for Halcyon, who have faced the failure of both the fourth movie and the television series, and they will continue to receive some amount of compensation for their troubles. Meanwhile, new owners could possibly mean that the franchise will be reinvigorated, giving fans new hope that the apocalyptic franchise will rise from the ashes. Hopefully Pacificor will learn from Sarah Connor's motto: There's no fate but what we make.