A few days ago we told you there was a bidding war to the film rights to the Terminator franchise. Studio Lionsgate believed it had the winning bid sewn up, but Megan Ellison, daughter of Larry Ellison, the co-founder and CEO of Oracle, and her company Annapurna Films looks to have placed a bid that was substantially higher than Lionsgate. With the rights fully in control of Annapurna Films it means that Megan Ellison can make at least two more installments of the Terminator franchise.
Already, Fast Five‘s Justin Lin is attached to direct and Arnold Schwarzenegger is to star.
This is great news for Megan Ellison, who is still getting her feet wet in the movie business. She served in an executive producing capacity on True Grit and produced the recent release Passion Play starring Mickey Rourke, Megan Fox and Bill Murray.
However, I’m more excited about her next few features. This includes The Wettest County in the World, which is directed by John Hillcoat (The Proposition, The Road), and stars Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Guy Pearce and Mia Wasikowska. She also has two Paul Thomas Anderson films percolating, The Master with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix, as well as Anderson’s adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s novel Inherent Vice.
But probably the biggest coup for her, besides this auction rights win, is Kathryn Bigelow’s Kill Bin Laden feature, which got a noticeable bump in visibility the day after he was killed in Pakistan by U.S. Navy SEALs.
