Producers of 'Terminator Salvation' file for bankruptcy

It is an amazing take on the Hollywood film industry that two film companies, each of which produced financially successful entries in the Terminator film franchise, have had to file for bankruptcy in the very wake of big bucks from those blockbuster hits. According to Bloomberg.com, Halcyon Holding Group LLC, the firm that produced Terminator Salvation, filed Chapter 11 petitions in US Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles on August 17th. Halcyon claims it holds between $50M and $100M in debts and assets. Two affiliated companies also filed for Chapter 11. Pacificor, the hedge fund that invested $39M in the film's production, and which Halcyon has also filed its own lawsuit against, claims it has received only $15M back to date. Derek Anderson and Victor Kubichek, who own Halcyon group and produced Terminator Salvation, claimed they couldn't make the remaining payments because of a lien Pacificor placed on Dominion Holdings, an affiliate company that also filed for Chapter 11 protection. Terminator Salvation earned a total of $370M worldwide on a $200M budget. Today's news reminded me of similar bankruptcy filings in 1995 by Carolco, the production company founded by Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna. Rumors of bankruptcy flourished around Carolco even as Terminator 2: Judgment Day was well on its way to becoming the blockbuster box office hit of 1991. Terminator 2: Judgment Day would eventually earn $520M worldwide on a $102M production budget. Carolco also produced all three entries of the 'Rambo' series, and actively sought the rights to the Spiderman comic book series for director James Cameron, who was keen on the project at the time. That gig would eventually go to Sam Raimi and Columbia Pictures. Though all the details have yet to be sorted out regarding Halcyon's bankruptcy filing over Terminator Salvation, the reasons for Carolco's failures have been well-documented: big budget productions like Cutthroat Island and Showgirls that bombed, and not enough box office intake from other projects to keep the company solvent. Yet as with many Hollywood film endings, especially with regard to the Terminator franchise, it ain't over till it's over, and even then. Though Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna went their separate ways after Carolco folded, out of those ashes came a new partnership between the two men, C2 Pictures, which has produced the films I Spy, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Basic Instinct 2 and the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Film companies may come and go, but the Dream, and the Dreamers, live on.