'Terminator' Franchise Sold, Sony And Lionsgate Lose Out To... A Hedge Fund?

For the past several months, we've been following a developing story around the "Terminator" franchise. Despite the solid box office performance of 2009's "Terminator Salvation," license-holder Halcyon Holding Corp. was forced to file for bankruptcy in the latter half of last year. The killer robot franchise has been up on the auction block for awhile, with studio frontrunners Lionsgate and Sony leading the charge.

We knew as of last week that the auction was scheduled for yesterday, and that the winner would become the new owner of all things "Terminator" moving forward: movies, TV, games, books, toys, etc. In an odd twist, it seems that the winner is neither Lionsgate nor Sony. It's not even a movie studio! The new owner of the "Terminator" franchise is hedge fund Pacificor, Nikki Finke reports for Deadline Hollywood. Wait though... this news gets even wackier.

For starters, the final round of the auction apparently saw top bidders Lionsgate and Sony "joined up," with the intention of giving their joint purchase a full-blown reboot. They lost in the end to Pacificor, which interestingly has quite a history with Halcyon.

When Halcyon purchased the "Terminator" rights in 2007, Pacificor lent them some amount of money to cover the $30 million price tag. Pacificor also pushed the former rights-holder into bankruptcy and was the target of a $30 million filed by Halcyon which included allegations of extortion, bribery and fraud. The word is that the hedge fund's winning bid comes with a tantalizing string attached to it for Halcyon: in addition to the $5 million they'll receive for future "Terminator" movies and any royalties from the third and fourth movies, they are also officially off the hook on debts to Pacificor and other creditors, pending the approval of a bankruptcy court.

So there you have it. "Terminator" belongs to a hedge fund. We'll be looking at the implications of this later today. For now, we've reached out to both Lionsgate and Sony, and neither has any comment at this time.

What do you think of this latest development in the ongoing saga of the "Terminator" franchise?

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