Posted by banson on August 14th, 2010 |
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Hannover House, the entertainment distribution division of Target Development Group, Inc., announced that they have entered into a development venture with Vancouver-based Red Bear Entertainment, for Terminator 3000. The project is being produced as a 3D animated feature film with an estimated $70 million budget. And the movie will feature the characters and general plot points of the orignial Terminator movie. Eric Parkinson, the C.E.O. of Hannover House, was previously the C.E.O. of Hemdale Home Video, Inc. and Hemdale Communications, Inc., and handled the distribution of the original Terminator movie.
There aren’t many details for Terminator 3000, but the company has stated that they are aiming for a PG-13 rating, so they will be looking to minimize the level of violence in the movie. Hannover House and Red Bear Entertainment is proposing a January, 2011 start, and they will release details of the production timing, financing and principal production personnel in advance of their start.
However, controversy is arising around this announcement. Hanover is laying claim to rights to produce animated Terminator material, but another company, Pacificor, actually owns the rights to the Terminator franchise. And they have sent a cease and desist letter to Hannover House. The letter states:
“We recently became aware through various online media reports that Hannover House, purportedly a division of Target Development Group, Inc. (“TDGI”), entered into a purported feature film development venture with a Vancouver based entity, Red Bear Entertainment, for “Teminator 3000” an animated feature film based upon the characters introduced in the original Terminator movie.
This knowledge came as a surprise to Pacificor. It did not license or authorize any such development or film. Indeed, it has not been contacted by Hannover House, TDGI, Red Bear Entertainment or anyone else seeking such a license or approval.
While some of the reports we have seen mention that Pacificor “retains approval and licencing authority…” over the proposed project, a reasonable inference drawn from the reports is that such approval has been obtained. Otherwise, why would the “development deal” have been entered into in the first place and why would the reports mention a proposed January 2011 start date for production?”
Hemdale produced and distributed James Cameron’s original Terminator feature, but in 1990 they released the sequel rights to Carolco, which later transferred the rights to Halcyon Media. Halcyon went bankrupt and placed the Terminator rights up for auction. Santa Barbara based Pacificor, LLC purchased those rights at the auction in January. However, Parkinson claims that when rights to the Terminator property were sold to Carolco, animation rights weren’t included in the deal. And he insists that he was given the animation rights when he left Hemdale. Further complicating the picture is that even if Hanover does have the animation rights to Terminator, Pacificor still retains approval and licensing authority over the proposed Terminator 3000 project.
“The animation rights were excluded when Hemdale sold Terminator to Carolco and when I left Hemdale,” Parkinson said. “Part of my settlement was that I got those rights. However, the way the rest of the contractual rights are written, it would be dangerous for us to do this without Pacificor’s approval. They have certain intellectual rights. The best way to put it is, they can’t make an animated film without me, and we might not be able to make it without them. We are in discussions with WME (the agency in charge of the rights), and hope we can deal with this expeditiously.”
It seems that Terminator 3000 is stuck in limbo for now, but Parkinson remains hopeful that an agreement can be reached.
“We’ve arranged a meeting, we’ll show them our money and if the rational brain prevails, they’ll take the deal. If not, I can’t do it without them. You’ll have a follow-up next week that we are either holding hands, or not doing the film. At least we now have our meeting. I hope they will can think outside the box, because if we can make a movie that delivers a $20 million to $30 million rights payment, that is an income source they didn’t realize was possible. If not, it was a good idea anyway.”
