You may recall that earlier this year the rights to the Terminator franchise were being auctioned off in the wake of the disappointing box office performance of Terminator: Salvation and ended up in the hands of Santa Barbara-based hedge fund Pacificor. Now this week we have the first hint of what they will do with the property, and it’s something that I don’t think many fans will be particularly pleased with. They have reportedly approved a new animated movie called Terminator 3000 from Hannover House and Red Bear Entertainment. The movie will be a $70 million 3-D production “based on the characters and situations introduced in the original Terminator feature.” I guess this is what happens when movie rights get sold to a financial group instead of a movie studio.

While in theory I’m not against the idea of a big budget CG animated film based on a franchise like this, there is one statement that is particularly worrisome: “the writers and production team have a stated goal of minimizing violence in order to obtain a PG-13 level of material.” Yes, Terminator: Salvation may have been PG-13, but I don’t think they actively tried to reduce the amount of violence from the very start of the project. There’s been no word on who the actual writers or directors are, but something about this whole project seems very sketchy.

Personally I don’t see why James Cameron doesn’t just buy the rights to The Terminator back for himself at this point. Surely he must have enough cash lying around from Avatar to do it, and even if he was just going to sit on it and do nothing more with the series, at least it would avoid the embarrassment of having the Terminator name run into the ground. What do you think, could Terminator 3000 have potential, or is this just a bad idea all around?