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LOS ANGELES - The Terminator is coming back.
A nascent film company has acquired the franchise rights to the popular movie series starring Arnold Schwarzenegger from producers Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna, intending to make a new trilogy. The deal is said to be in the tens of millions of dollars.
The Halcyon Co. -- a privately financed firm -- plans to begin immediate preproduction on Terminator 4, with hopes that it will be ready for release in the first half of 2009.
The script, by John Brancato and Michael Ferris, was part of the transaction. No distributor is on board, or any talent.
However, industry journal Daily Variety reported neither Schwarzenegger or director James Cameron will be involved.
Halcyon -- headed by advertising veteran Derek Anderson and Cook-Off! producer Victor Kubicek -- pursued the Terminator rights aggressively for several months, knowing that the series is one of the few recognizable properties out there not in the hands of a major studio. Halcyon also is concentrating on a merchandising and licensing push for the property.
The rights to Terminator have changed hands several times.
Kassar acted as an executive producer for 1991's Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and he and Vajna acquired interests from Gale Anne Hurd -- who produced the first one in 1984 and executive produced the second -- when the duo made 2003's Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.
- REUTERS/Hollywood Reporter
