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I was casually flipping through Variety this morning over a classic Hollywood breakfast of half a grapefruit, some cottage cheese, and a cocaine-and-egg-white omelet (no, I wasn’t!) when I happened upon this bit of BREAKING news:
An auction is set for January for Halcyon Co. to sell the rights to future “Terminator” pics, TV series, DVDs and merchandise as part of its bankruptcy process.
Ay-ay-ay! You guys! This is our ticket out of this DUMP! If we all pool our money, I’m sure we could buy the rights to the Terminator franchise (I am not entirely sure of that) and then we would all live together in a Beverly Hills mansion, just like a family. Just like in Ken Burns’s Entourage! Let’s do the numbers:
“Terminator Salvation,” the fourth film in the franchise, carried a production pricetag of about $200 million and took in $371 million worldwide.
Bear in mind, Terminator Salvation was awful. Now, I’ve done some number-crunching (no I haven’t) on my TI-85, and a $371 million return on a $200 million investment is over 14,000 percent profit! Probably!
Now, we’re going to need a strong pitch if we’re going to beat out the Hollywood Fat Cats who we’ll be competing against for this. They’ll have their fancy solid-gold sportscars and their money-shaped hot tubs with built in champagne holders, but we can beat them on heart. Here are a couple of ideas for the new direction of Terminator:
* The Terminator opens up a chain of family-owned suburban waterparks. Things are going pretty well, until the evil FunCorp conglomerate opens a flashy but soulless franchise waterpark across the street and threatens to put the Terminator out of business. So, the Terminator travels back in time to kill Betty Connor, the woman who will give birth to Frank Connor, the founder and CEO of FunCorp brand Water Amusements.
* The Terminator drops his honors thesis down a steam vent, where it falls into the rascally hands of a homeless man living in the boiler room of the Harvard library. The Terminator makes a deal with the man where he will get one page of the thesis back for every service or kindness that the Terminator provides for the homeless man. They both learn a lot about life and friendship, but eventually the Terminator realizes he really needs that thesis if he’s going to graduate with honors, so he travels back in time to kill Penelope Conner, the woman who will give birth to Edward Conner, who will eventually grow up to lead the resistance against living somewhere other than the Harvard library boiler room.
* The Terminator has just gone through a difficult break-up with his actress girlfriend. In an attempt to get over it, he travels to Hawaii, only to discover that his ex is staying with her new rock star boyfriend in the same hotel. They spend an awkward week in paradise, until the Terminator decides that he is in charge of his own happiness, so he travels back in time to kill Andrea Marshall, the woman who will eventually give birth to Sarah Marshall, who the Terminator would just really like to forget.
GET IN ON THE GROUND FLOOR OF THIS AMAZING INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY. Just send as much money as you can to gabe@videogum.com. I’ve already started working on a cardboard thermometer that goes from 0 to our goal of low-to-high millions, and I am going to color in that thermometer as we go! Look out, Jerry Bruckheimer!
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i think i’ll save my money to buy rights to the saw franchise.
Come with me if you want to live to see an amazing return on your investment.
I’ll Be Backend.
Hasta la vista, dividends.
I’m going to email you a 100 euro’s… that’s ok?
I’ll take a picture of all the bills.
I have a basket full of leftover Halloween candy.
Chalk it up, Gabe!
Sorry, I already gave all of my money to a nice Nigerian man who is facing some financial difficulties. But when I get the promised US$2,000,000, sign me up.
Listen, count me in for 4 dollars right off the bat. If you’re really serious about this, I’m willing to hold a garage sale.
Those Hollywood Fat Cats are seriously ruthless, also very tough: Hollywood Big Wigs.
You use your TI-85 for not playing Tetris?
Yeah, of course! It’s for playing Snake.
Honey Daniels wants to be a big time dancer, but she’s having trouble making it to the top. Finally she’s spotted by big-time producer Michael Ellis, who offers her a job. Honey willingly accepts and gets started straight away. She’s a big hit and even gets a promotion, but soon her boss tries to make sexual advances on her, which Honey declines and loses her job. Meanwhile, the community center where Honey works voluntarily as a hip-hop dance teacher is falling apart. Soon, Honey is forced to find a new dance studio and finds herself in a financial snag because of her previous job loss. She decides to put on a big dance performance to raise money for a studio. It’s a hit, and Honey opens up her own dance studio. Then, the Terminator kills her.
I smell a Video Bake Sale Party comin’ on!!!
If someone makes cheesecake cupcakes, I will front most of the $200 million.
I have $7.89, 2 Jolly Ranchers, and a retractable pencil. That should get us part of the way, right?
the terminator should go back in time and kill the producers of terminator 3 and 4, thus saving himself the utter embarrassment of this fire sale.
Oh, my God, we?re having a fire. Sale. Oh, the burning! It burns me! Evacuate all the schoolchildren! (Screaming. Singing ?Amazing Grace.?) This isn?t a fever! (Continues singing.) Can?t even see where the knob is! (Dramatic sigh.) And scene.
The Terminator inexplicably becomes Governor of California and goes back in time to kill Maria Shriver because she is a fringe Kennedy and also related to Skeletor, ?Evil Lord of Destruction”/greatest threat to present-day Eternia.
You cannot be serious with this Commenter name. Please go back to your previous, much less obnoxious commenter name, “vermits.”
Really? I mean, it’s a not-very-good joke from a not-very-good movie, but there are things I’ve seen on this site that I will never scrub from my brain, far worse than the word “C.L.I.T.”
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This is better. Thank you.
I’m a team player
The guy sending murder packages that actually killed people in real life profile picture is good though, right? I really don’t want to Google image search again for 30 seconds.
That is fine.
LOLOLOL WUT?
joss whedon already made the best offer. (three, technically): http://whedonesque.com/comments/22240
The terminator is a lovable, if sometimes immature goof, who is married with three beautiful children. His wife decides Terminator’s “antics,” while undeniably charming, have gone too far and divorces him for a more mature, yet less fun, lawyer. Terminator decides to dress up like an old British woman, go back in time, and kill his wife’s grandfather, thus giving him full custody of the children!!
It will appeal to families and fantasy geeks alike! Two huge demos (hollywood talk).
Does Jerry Bruckheimer’s face always look like genitalia? I don’t remember that…
When I first saw that picture I nearly screamed. Then again, Gabe did tell us “look out Jerry Bruckheimer” … he just forgot the comma.
I was thinking there was something terribly terribly wrong with his nose, but I hadn’t gotten as far as determining exactly what the issue was. You’ve saved me some time!
What’s wrong with his nose is his septum quit before he did. Too many OMELETS, knaamean?
Ah, now it all makes sense.
But why the long face?
The Terminator hates his life so he quits his jobs and starts an underground fist fighting team but it gets super out of hand. The Terminator has to go back in time and kill himself to stop everyone’s credit cards from getting blown up. Paradox. Roll Credits. Money, please?
Well, I guess this is what you get, Gabe, for being the leader of a gang of semi-employed, socialist weirdos who watch far too much Thursday night television: less than 50 bucks and a Kate Gosselin wig (I’m assuming Dafs is willing to donate it for the cause).
I’m in for some pocket lint and XXA-sized* condom.
*extra-extra average
We need to buy these rights to save the world from more Terminator movies.
It takes just a couple of minor changes to the synopsis of T4 to make this work:
“In 2003, Dr. MacFarlane of CyberyGuy Systems convinces death row inmate Bill Hicks to sign his body over for medical research following his execution by lethal nicotine inhalation. One year later, the Guynet system is activated, perceives a basic sense of humor as a threat to its own existence, and eradicates much of humanity in the event known as Dunham Day. In 2018, John Conan O’Brien leads an attack by the Anti-Douche Rebellion on a Guynet base. O’Brien discovers human prisoners and the plans for the development of a new type of terrorist puppet incorporating living tissue, but is the only apparent survivor of the attack after the base is destroyed in a terrorist puppet attack. However, Bill emerges from the wreckage of the base and proceeds on foot to South Park.
O’Brien returns to Anti-Douche Rebellion headquarters located aboard a nuclear submarine and tells General Louis CK, the current leader, of his discovery. Meanwhile, the Anti-Douche Rebellion has discovered a comedy radio frequency capable of shutting down Guynet terrorist puppets. They plan to launch an offensive against the Guynet base in Un Funcisco in four days, in response to an intercepted “kill list” indicating that Guynet plans to kill the Anti-Douche Rebellion’s command staff in four days’ time. O’Brien learns that his own name is second on the list, following Mitch Hedberg. The Anti-Douche Rebellion leaders are unaware of Mitch’s importance to Guynet, but O’Brien knows that it is because Mitch will later become his father. O’Brien meets with his officer Alec Baldwin and wife Tina Fey and sends comedy radio broadcasts to Anti-Douche Rebellion members and surviving funny people around the world.
Arriving in the ruins of South Park, Bill is saved from a T-600 terrorist puppet by Mitch Hedberg and his mute companion Kenny. Mitch relates to Bill the events of Dunham Day and the ensuing war between humans and terrorist puppets. Hearing O’Brien’s comedy radio broadcast, the three leave South Park in search of the Anti-Douche Rebellion. They survive an attack by terrorist puppets, but Mitch, Kenny, and several other humans are taken prisoner, while a pair of Anti-Douche Rebellion A-10s are shot down. Bill locates downed pilot Jane Lynch and they make their way to O’Brien’s base, but Bill is wounded by a magnetic land mine. Attempting to save his life, the Anti-Douche Rebellion fighters discover that he is in fact a terrorist puppet with human organs, a mechanical endoskeleton, circuitry, and a partially artificial cerebral cortex. Bill believes himself to be human, demanding to be released so that he can save Mitch from Guynet, but O’Brien orders his destruction. However, Jane releases him and helps him to escape from the base. During the resulting pursuit Bill saves O’Brien’s life from Guynet hydrobots, and the two form a comedic alliance. Bill will enter Guynet’s headquarters and attempt to disable its defenses by spitting oneliners, so that O’Brien can rescue Mitch.
O’Brien demands that Louis CK delays the attack so that he can rescue Mitch and the other prisoners, but Louis CK refuses and relieves O’Brien of his command. However, O’Brien’s soldiers remain loyal to him and he sends a comedy radio broadcast asking the other Anti-Douche Rebellion fighters not to attack Guynet. Meanwhile, Bill enters the Guynet base and interfaces with the computer, disabling the perimeter defenses and allowing O’Brien to infiltrate the cell block and release the human prisoners. The Anti-Douche Rebellion’s disabling signal is revealed to be a ruse, and the command submarine with the Anti-Douche Rebellion leaders aboard is destroyed by Dane Cook.
Bill discovers that he was created by Guynet and has unwittingly fulfilled his programmed mission to lure O’Brien into the base to be killed. He tears out the hardware linking him to Guynet and leaves to assist O’Brien in battling a T-800 model 101 terrorist puppet. O’Brien is mortally wounded during the fight, but succeeds in destroying the Guynet base by rigging several terrorist puppet nuclear power cells to an explosive, detonating them as he, Bill, Mitch, and Kenny are airlifted out. Tina Fey attempts to save O’Brien’s life, but his sense of humor is too damaged. Bill offers his wit for transplant, sacrificing himself to save O’Brien. Recovering, O’Brien comedy radios to the other Anti-Douche Rebellion fighters that though this battle has been won, the war is far from over.”
You’re so creative Gabe.
I would have just pitched a line of high-end Terminator Pornography.
I’ll be (on my) back? Come with me if you want to come? So many possibilities! We’re natural business partners, you know. You’re the Hobbes to my Calvin!
oh, there is one.
it’s called penetrator. i was treated to MANY viewings of penetrator 2 during my days of drinking 40oz with teenage boys. (yesterday.)
actual quote: “you can’t just go around penetrating people whenever you feel like it!”
I would buy it just so I could license the rights for advertisements. He will TERMINATE those rodents! “They won’t be back.” Right? Rolling in the dough.
The Terminator is a young boy who believes in reciprocity. He begins a scheme in which one act of kindness grows exponentially to encompass the masses. People get so nice that they begin giving away Jaguars (both the animal and vehicle). Eventually, the entire human race learns to live in harmony. Then the Terminator kills them all because robots.