How a Failed Terminator Movie Ended With Bankruptcy

In 2009, Terminator Salvation was released as an attempt to soft reboot the franchise and set up a brand-new trilogy. While the film is a sequel to 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, the purpose of Salvation was to set up a new story with a familiar character in the lead. The fourth installment would be the first, and so far only, Terminator film not to feature Arnold Schwarzenegger, although his likeness briefly appears digitally. Instead, Christian Bale, just a year off of the mega success of The Dark Knight, would step in as John Connor, a role previously played by Edward Furlong and Nick Stahl. McG would step in to direct, while Bale would be aided by a more than capable supporting cast that included Anton Yelchin, Bryce Dallas Howard, Common, Michael Ironside, Sam Worthington, Moon Bloodgood, and Helena Bonham Carter.

However, despite offering a bit of a departure from the previous installments by focusing on a post-apocalyptic world, a new premise for Terminator Salvation wouldn’t be enough to save it from a world of problems that ultimately ended with the film’s production company filing for bankruptcy shortly after the movie’s release.

Before Salvation could even begin production, the Terminator rights would need to land in the right hands. C2 Pictures held the rights in 1999 when two Terminator movies were to be developed simultaneously. The first of those films ended up being Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which Tedi Sarafian was hired to write. Sarafian was ultimately given story credit for the third installment, while David C. Wilson was commissioned to write Terminator 4. The original idea for the third film was to set it in 2001 and revolve it around the first attacks between Skynet and the humans, while T4 would take place immediately afterward and would center mainly on the war seen briefly in the first two films.

The Terminator Rights Land With the Halcyon Company

After Terminator 3 was released, the plan was to bring back its stars, Nick Stahl and Claire Danes (Kate Brewster), while the film’s director, Jonathan Mostow, would be back behind the camera. There were even plans to bring back Schwarzenegger, although his role would be limited due to his duties as Governor of California at the time. A plan was certainly in place, but plans soon derailed on the original intentions for the fourth film.

In 2005, Stahl revealed that he and Danes would be recast because the story would jump forward in time. In 2006, MGM, the then-current owner of the Hemdale Film Corporation library and distributor and producer of the original film as a successor of Orion Pictures, was set to distribute the movie, but that all fell apart when it was announced in 2007 that the production rights to the Terminator series had passed from producers Andrew G. Vajna and Mario Kassar to the Halcyon Company.

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Perhaps a sign of the issues to come, the fourth installment ended up in legal limbo because of a lawsuit between MGM and Halcyon subsidiary T-Asset. MGM was given an exclusive window of 30 days to negotiate terms for distribution of the Terminator films, with Halcyon rejecting their initial proposal for Terminator 4. MGM soon suspended negotiations, and once the 30 days were over, MGM made the assertion that the period during which the talks were suspended did not count towards those 30 days, and their exclusive period was still open.

Halcyon soon asked a court for an injunction allowing them to approach other distributors, eventually leading to Warner Bros. stepping in with a $60 million offer to acquire the United States distribution rights of what would become Terminator Salvation. Sony Pictures paid a little over $100 million to purchase the film’s distribution rights in most international territories, with Lotte Entertainment and Mars Entertainment covering over international territories not acquired by Sony.

Trouble While Filming Terminator Salvation

Terminator Salvation was budgeted at $200 million, making it the most expensive Terminator film to date. McG, known for his work in television and directing the Charlie’s Angels films, decided to direct the project because of his love of the first two movies and because the post-apocalyptic setting would allow the fourth installment to stand out from the previous entries. The writing of Terminator Salvation went through several hands. John Brancato and Michael Ferris wrote the first complete version of the screenplay, while Paul Haggis rewrote their work before Shawn Ryan made another revision three weeks before shooting started. Even Jonathan Nolan (yes, that Jonathan Nolan), wrote parts of the film on set with McG even saying that he was practically the film’s lead writer.

Nolan’s main contributions to the film came after Bale signed on to play John Connor, which mostly included fleshing out the character’s arc of becoming a leader. Unfortunately, the 2007-08 Writers Guild of America strike caused Nolan to abruptly leave the film due to another commitment. The rewrites on Terminator Salvation were said to be so extensive that writer Alan Dean Foster, who penned the novelization, decided to rewrite the whole thing before submitting it to his publisher because the shooting script was vastly different from the one he was given at the start.

The shooting of Salvation was plagued with various problems. Bale broke his hand while filming, and Worthington also suffered a back injury that caused delays. In addition, special effects technician Mike Menardis almost lost one of his legs while filming an explosion. Perhaps the most well-publicized event on set was when Bale lost his temper with Director of Photography Shane Hurlbut for walking onto the set during a particularly intense scene for the actor. Bale swore at and criticized Hurlbut before threatening to quit the film, with audio from the rant being leaked to the public.

The audio would soon go viral, becoming a source of embarrassment for Bale and the production of Terminator Salvation. The actor ultimately publicly apologized and said that he and Hurlbut had already come to terms on the matter. In the end, it came down to Bale being a perfectionist, getting a little ticked that a take was ruined, and not adequately controlling his anger. The actor also said they worked together for hours the rest of that day without incident.

Legal Troubles Hint at What’s to Come for the Terminator Franchise

Lawsuits also became an issue before the film was even released. In March 2009, producer Mortiz Borman filed a lawsuit against the Halcyon Company, seeking $160 million. Borman, who arranged the transfer of the Terminator rights to Halcyon in 2007, claimed the company’s managers “hijacked” the project and refused to give him his $2.5 million share of the production. Borman claimed that budget overruns were why he wasn’t paid his fee and that Halycyon had a $1 million debt.

Ultimately, an amicable resolution was reached just a month after the lawsuit was filed. In addition, in May 2009, executive producer Peter D. Graves, who informed Halcyon managers Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek about the Terminator rights, filed a breach-of-contract claim for arbitration, asserting that the duo owed him $750,000. All of these mounting issues were taking place on the cusp of the film’s May 21, 2009, release date.

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When Terminator Salvation opened, the film earned a respectable $42.5 million on its four-day Memorial Day opening weekend, placing second behind Night of the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. While the opening wasn’t a disaster, it was lower than the $72.5 million five-day opening of its predecessor (Terminator 3 opened over the July 4th weekend), and it was the first film of the franchise not to open at number one. By the end of its run, Terminator Salvation grossed $125.3 million domestically and $371.3 million worldwide, which is not ideal for a film with a $200 million budget, not including marketing costs.

The reception of Terminator Salvation didn’t help its overall box office performance. The film received a rotten score of 33% on Rotten Tomatoes, with a consensus that reads, “With storytelling as robotic as the film’s iconic villains, Terminator Salvation offers plenty of great effects but lacks the heart of the original films.” Those associated with previous Terminator films also weighed in. Schwarzenegger, who initially said Salvation was “a great film,” reversed that praise and said it was “Awful. It tried hard, not that they didn’t try, the acting and everything. It missed the boat.” James Cameron, who helmed the first two films, offered backhanded compliments by saying it was an “interesting film” and that he “didn’t hate it as much as I thought I was going to.”

The Terminator Franchise Stalled After Salvation

Although the original intention was for Terminator Salvation to kick off a brand-new trilogy, production on a fifth film was stopped by legal trouble and The Halcyon Company filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy just three months after Salvation‘s release. Even though the film cleared $371.3 million globally at the box office, it wasn’t enough for Halcyon to pay their debts, which included payment demanded by Santa Barbara hedge fund Pacificor, which financed their $30-million purchase of the Terminator rights back in 2007 and two subsequent loans to their Halcyon Co. production firm worth $9 million.

The management team at Halcyon said they couldn’t make the payment because of a lien that Pacificor placed on Dominion Holdings, a company through which they earned their producing fees on the movie. This is in addition to the legal disputes that were made public ahead of the film’s release. Anderson and Kubicek’s careers as producers were very short because Terminator Salvation was the only film the pair released before the filing. Due to all the legal issues, all plans for sequels were canceled.

The Terminator atop stills from Terminator Zero.

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In 2010, Halcyon auctioned off the Terminator franchise rights, and Pacificor acquired them before ultimately selling them off to Annapurna Pictures in 2012. This eventually led to the franchise being rebooted again with Terminator Genisys‘s release in 2015. Much like Salvation, Genisys was to be the first of a new trilogy, this time with Schwarzenegger reprising his role as the T-800. With the release of Genisys and Terminator: Dark Fate in 2017, the franchise still couldn’t achieve its once lofty heights, and, as of now, its live-action footprint remains stagnant.

The one saving grace for Terminator Salvation is that it has been reevaluated in the years since its release, particularly after the lukewarm reception to Genisys and Dark Fate. The film was given credit for attempting something different, and it has amassed a bit of a cult following, with the film’s fans calling for the release of McG’s R-rated director’s cut. However fans feel about Salvation now, it once had bigger goals 15 years ago, and, thanks to ballooning budgets, legal disputes, and bankruptcy, those goals ended before they could even materialize. Terminator Salvation is available to stream on Max.