Well, that was faster than expected. Less than a week after former Governor of California
Arnold Schwarzenegger made a
'come and get me' plea via Twitter to Hollywood, asking writers to start sending screenplays his way for a return to acting and there's already talk of a studio being interested in reviving his biggest franchise,
The Terminator. According to
Deadline, one of the majors, Universal, are said to be considering making a move to bring the studio-less Terminator back to the big screen, perhaps as a vehicle for director
Justin Lin & writer
Chris Morgan, the pair responsible for the past few Fast & Furious movies. Presumably, the hope for Universal is that Arnie would agree to a starring return, or at the very least, a small cameo. And who said star power was dead in Hollywood? Suddenly with a potential return for Arnie on the cards, there's now interest in the Terminator again after every studio in town turned down the chance of co-financing a movie with rights holder, hedge fund company Pacificor last year after the failure of Terminator Salvation. In fact, the only studio who were interested in a Terminator movie in 2010 was the small Indie outfit Hannover House,
who rather embarrassingly attempted to get a animated film set during the James Cameron timeline off the ground, titled
Terminator 3000 - and they tried to do it without Pacificor's blessing, which resulted in a quick termination of that.
Lots more questions than answers on this one. Are Universal serious about pushing through a Terminator franchise, and are they serious about such a glossy & un-sci-fi filmmaker in the director's chair once again after McG's failure? Surely, they should be looking at sci-fi helmers and not action guy of the month? And what will the counter move be from Sony, Paramount, Warner Bros. and the rest of the studios? Will they get in on the act now that Arnie is suddenly a possibility to star? And more importantly, will the Kindergarten Cop rights holders suddenly get the idea to sequelize themselves? We think James Cameron put it best last year, concerning Terminator (but it works for Kindergarten Cop too) - that soups kind of been pissed in.