The Financial Times reports that the rights to the Terminator kingdom — films, TV shows, ringtones, pajamas, you name it — will be put on the block this month, with Sony the front-runner to take home the goods.

While the original films, and T2 in particular, were powerhouse earners in their day, after the franchise lay dormant for a decade, attempts to reboot have been spotty.

2003's Terminator 3 did not turn out to be the artistic or box-office bomb that many feared, but shortly after that film's release producer Mario Kassar sold off the franchise to the all-but-unknown unknown Halcyon Entertainment, which created a forgettable TV series and an abysmal McG directed film, Terminator Salvation.

Halcyon has now been driven to Chapter 11, which led to the court-directed auction of its assets, primarily poor forgotten Terminator.

Fortunately for the sad little franchise, any idea that has any sort of merchandiseable juice behind it is nothing to be sneezed by a teetering Hollywood, grabbing for any thin reed they can. And in fact, despite being battered and bruised, Terminator remains a fairly lucrative cash cow, with the full Salvation take, all told - international, DVD, etc at more than $375 million. A few weeks ago the Mutant Ninja Turtles sold off for $60 million and it certainly seems plausible that
Terminator could fetch a higher price tag than that.

And with Arnold leaving the Governor's office in just over a year... it might be time for the world to say "Hasta la vista baby" all over again.

1) Night at the Museum 2: Panic! at the Smithsonian — $70 million
Now, that's $70 million over a four day period, from Thursday to Sunday. But, still. Huge numbers, biggest ever, in fact, for Stiller. And, if the funnyman and his golden boy writing team agree to it, the film's success just near about guarantees a threequel. Une Nuit à la Louvre, perhaps? Mona Lisa comes alive and smirks enigmatically at everyone (to be played by Anne Hathaway)! While Stiller's continued success seems increasingly smug and middlebrow, we are pleased for Lennon and Garant, who hopefully now will have the freedom to write the weirdest, profanest stuff they can dream up and still get a green light.

2) Terminator Salvation — $53.8 million
Am I going to walk around and rip your fucking movie down, in the middle of Memorial Day weekend? Then why the fuck are you giving my boring action flick bad word of mouth? Ah da da dah, like this, all over town. What the fuck is it with you? What don't you fucking understand? You got any fucking idea about, hey, it's fucking disappointing having somebody walking up behind someone in the middle of the fucking movie theater line and saying "Don't go see Terminator, cause it sucks"? Give me a fucking answer! What don't you get about it? Oh, so you saw Night at the Museum with your kid instead of my movie? Ohhhhh, goooood for you. And how was it? I hope it was fucking good, because it's useless now, isn't it?

3) Star Trek — $29.4 million
The force is still strong in this one! Hyperdriving to a lightsaber-hot $191 million in just a few weeks, the film is set to make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs—a new record! Soaring high through the clouds of Bespin, this swashbuckling space opera is sending the competition barrel-rolling down into the murky swamps of Dagobah. Sy Snoodles will be singing this movie's praises for eons, like a beautiful pop culture icon being slowly digested over a period of a thousand years by the mighty Sarlacc.

4) Angels & Demons — $27.7 million
Well good for everyone here. The film dropped less than 60% in its second week at the rodeo. While international numbers are sure to remain high for a lil' bit, this installment of the Dan Brown every-chapter-ends-with-a-cliffhanger-just-like-Fear Street religio-mystery series will not come close to its predecessor The Da Vinci Code's big returns. But no one really expected to, and every summer one or two movies do just OK, mostly lost and forgotten in the sea of churning robots and angry wizards and troubled museum guards who—wait, why is he in DC now?

5) Dance Flick — $13.1 million
A new generation of Wayans is welcomed into our hearts, as this a-few-years-too-late parody of films like Save the Last Stomping for When It's Time to Step Up does solid numbers in a super-crowded holiday weekend. We're pretty excited for the upcoming spoof Holiday-Time Family Cameo Comedy, in which Marlon Wayans Jr. plays a museum guard who must suddenly become a dad while driving a taxicab full of alien kids and then it's all 3D animation and Seth Rogen and a bunch of SNL people (or people pretending to be them, hilariously!) show up and everyone chuckles and forgets what they saw thirty minutes after leaving the theater.

Terminator Salvation is once again surrounded with controversy and angry people. This time, though, Christian Bale is blessedly uninvolved. No, one of the film's producers, Moritz Borman, is suing his fellow prods Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek. The pair owns the Variety]

Martin Lawrence, Regina King, Tracy Morgan, James Marsden, Zoe Saldana, and Loretta Divine will be joining Chris Rock in the remake of the British comedy Death at a Funeral (which starred Alan Tudyk and Peter Dinklage). Oddly, angry white boy Neil LaBute is slated to direct. [Variety]

If you weren't already convinced that we've only a few short, miserable, light-starved years to go before humanity coughs, sputters and dies, here's the tipping point. More people are watching The View this year than ever before. [Variety]

Julia Roberts will be producing a film called Jesus Henry Christ. It's actually just going to be Julia standing and smiling at George Clooney, touching his cheeks and saying "Oh you..." Then they rob a bank in Biarritz. [THR] Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss will be joining Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker out in Wyoming. When asked about the project, Moss gushed "Oh it's so exciting. Hugh's always wanted to be a cowboy. It's nice to see his dream come true." [THR]

Joe Simpson continues to try and squeeze blood from his stone-like daughters. He's now signed his most irksome offspring Ashlee Simpson-Wentz up for Embarrassing TV Camp, where she'll be doing some sort of frown-faced, husky-voiced acting for the new Melrose Place reboot. She'll play a small town LA transplant with a secret. The secret is that she has no discernible talent. [THR]

We sat down and broke apart every little detail from the new trailer that we think is worth pointing out, including Kyle Reese's mannerisms, details on the love life between John Connor and his wife... and who may be still standing at the end. Plenty of screencaps, and spoilers, below.

Up top you've got the one and only John Connor, ladies and gentlemen: he lands his helicopter on the Terminator then shoots it in the head, just to be sure, multi-tasking is tricky, and what is that head piece? Hello Stargate.

Baby Kyle Reese is played by the adorable Anton Yelchin — and it appears he already has the Michael Biehn toothy smile down pat.

In the future, everyone drives jeeps or trucks that look like they belong in the Road Warrior, and all is as it should be.

Amazing zooming moto-terminators with what looks like a couple of side arms and the terminator red-eye problem. Check out the harvester in the background — bring it!

Looks like the humans have been forced to live underground again, with Common.

Holy hell, those are some awesome Terminators. What's with the doohickies above their heads? Can they fly? They can fly, can't they? I mean, we know that the big ones can fly, but personal flying Terminators would be amazingtastic. UPDATE: All right, maybe it is a factory.

One muddy man, who I'm assuming is Sam Worthington's character Marcus after he escaped the evil Terminator labs, I mean Bale is big, but I don't know if he's that big.

Look at all the face scars on tied-up Marcus, John Connor doesn't trust him... nor should he!

Speaking of the evil Terminator labs, it looks like the humans are getting crushed in a giant trash compactor.

With Spikes!

Check this out: someone who is presumably naked just beat the hell out of a Terminator, and is about to use the arm gun to bust his naked ass out, I'm assuming this is all part of Marcus' great escape. Update: tsunamitomi made a good point that this could also be a portal or a time travel, so feasts your minds on that.

The freeing of the humans. This is a little Oz "Brand New Day" for me.

Connor snuggles a little too close to a Terminator face.

Lovers running! Moon Bloodgood playing Blair Williams runs with her alleged lover Marcus, but why is she smiling? Bad acting, or does she know something we don't?

Wheelies! If there is a god, this is Bale.

Ack, Connor is hurt. Quick, Common and Marcus — carry him to his wife before something bad happens.

Oh crap something bad happened, slo mo screaming is never a good sign. But I will say, Bryce Dallas Howard is looking like one hot Mrs. Connor.

Oh, and SHE'S PREGNANT. What?

What is this place? A secret lab for turning people into robots, possibly? Hey, it's been suggested. And who's that guy? Are there still humans working for the Terminators?

Hydro bot wrasslin'.

Please tell me who this is. Is it John or is it Marcus? Because one of them is clearly dead, by the looks of it.

More Harvester action.

The premise of Arnie's involvement is to have a fully rendered digital face of Arnie replacing the recently cast Roland Kickinger (The Younger version of Arnie). It seems the Director Mc G will in no doubt try all he can to ensure the Governator has some sort of involvement and as a result Arnold was on set providing key ADR (Voice over) for the visual effects guys to reference during post production. You have to remember, Arnold's commitments are preventing his return to the movie business and this seems the best logical way to ensure his involvement.

You may recall Christopher Lee's face being embossed on a stunt double in the Star Wars prequels?, imagine that with Arnold and you will get the picture. With ILM's best on the scene, it looks like Mc G is trying to get a head start on James Cameron's photo realistic stereoscopic camera systems.

Though we remain unconvinced that the Terminator franchise really needs a McG-helmed update, this new detail gives us hope — not because the addition of Ah-nuld can render the film less superfluous, but because the technology used to employ him might finally give the busy, reluctant Michael Cera a way to appear in the upcoming Arrested Development movie. BluthWatch '08!

[Photo Credit: X17]

• The Dark Knight Meets Mr. Freeze [Latino Review]

"I still don't know how it will play out with this one," said the star-turned-politician, who said he was given a private screening of early footage from "Terminator Salvation" by producers of the franchise reboot directed by McG. "They showed me some footage, but I don't have a feel for the movie. I didn't see enough. I wasn't sure who the Terminator was. I don't know if there is one or if he's the star or the hero. These are the things that determine the success and how the strong the movie will be."

..."There are such high standards and now there are always new standards being set for action," Schwarzenegger said. "You see that with 'Iron Man' and with the new Batman movie and that other film this summer, um, 'Wanted.' That was an excellent movie! There was this train coming down from a bridge, falling, and they're fighting inside the train car. Jesus, that is unbelievable that you can do that. To have the imagination to write it and the talent to shoot it and make it real on the screen. It's a whole new dimension."

Informed that the Wanted train car sequence didn't actually happen in real life, Schwarzenegger's jaw dropped. "Whaaaaat? And dis 'curving bullet' thing, dis is not real, too? Wait. So you are saying I am not actually pregnant? Wait until I tell Maria..."

• Schwarzenegger underwhelmed by early 'Terminator Salvation' footage [LAT]

Follow the links to awesome galleries.

Stan Winston Studio

Robots

Scary Monsters

Friendly Creatures

Gooftastic

· According to an article headlined, "Automated killer robots 'threat to humanity,'" A.I. expert Prof. Noel Sharkey says that robot killing machines currently employed by the military "pose a threat to humanity." They can "already identify and lock onto targets without human help," and might "one day unleash a robot arms race." Luckily, the introduction of the reprogrammed-for-good Tween-2000 Jailbait Killing machine model, eerily predicted by a Fox science fiction series way back in the early 2000s, will help to defend humanity against this seemingly unwinnable robot war. [breitbart.com]

· Les Moonves told a group of Wall Street analysts that not only did the strike fail affect the CBS Corp.'s bottom line, it also allowed them to reexamine the whole development process, revealing pilots as "vastly overrated" tools that fail to provide necessary hits. Instead, the network is now looking at a completely revamped system, in which one character archetype, an unusual profession, and a genre are plucked out of three top hats. Dina Powers: Animal Control Investigator, a thrilling series from the creators of CSI that follows the exploits of a sassy single mom who's never encountered a rabid-possum mauling she couldn't get to the bottom of, is scheduled to premiere next fall. [THR]
· Crash: The TV Seriez, coming to a Starz channel near you, has chosen a showrunner in Glen Mazzara, who pledges to extend the car-crash-as-means-of-human-connection metaphor to such other significance-laden roadside mishaps as bicycle wheelies gone wrong, skateboarding casualties, and pedestrians accidentally brushing up against one another on crowded crosswalks. [THR]

(213): Come on, who would be McG's "dream Terminator"?!

McG: [I]t's very difficult to say because it's a decidedly masculine role and I think we're living in a time where a lot of actors are very effeminate and they're sort of skinny, heroine chic and there's really a masculine component to the role. And there's guys out there like Russell Crowe and Eric Bana, bring a good physicality, they do what they do, but I don't know if they're exactly right at the end of the day. (Smiles) Josh Brolin is a very exciting actor - we'll see.

Impressively, McG manages in one response to not only out Hollywood's entire male movie star population, but to also drop the kinds of A-list names that make it clear he has no intention of squandering this casting opportunity on someone like The Rock. (Who, now that we mention it, would make the greatest Terminator, like, ever.) Still, if that telling smile preceding Brolin's name is any indication, Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins would feature the most intimidating mechanical assassin yet, especially if it's outfitted with a creepy Ramona wig like the T-Chigurh model had.

• 213 Exclusive: McG talks Terminator! [the213.net]

· Today's most dispiriting strike-related lede: "With both sides back at the barricades, many believe the writers strike won't be resolved until March at the earliest." See you on the other side of Armageddon, Hollywood survivors! [Variety]
· Onetime UPN pilot Tanner Hall, is being reborn as an indie feature film, starring Tom Everett Scott, Amy Sedaris, and Chris Kattan. [THR]
· In a happy side effect of the strike (for actors and studios), projects canceled by the work stoppage have freed up some big-name talent to shoot films until the DGA and SAG contracts expire in June.[Variety]