It’s been nearly two years since heiress-turned-producer Megan Ellison scooped up the Terminator franchise from its squalid Lionsgate foster home, promising to take it somewhere it would be nurtured with the same loving attention and unconditional financing she’s lavished on films like Zero Dark Thirty and The Master. Today comes the first news of what she’s done for it, besides being totally cool about it swearing and killing and staying up all night and other R-rated things: Deadline reports Ellison has now hired writers Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier to script the fifth installment, which will attempt to salvage the franchise from its most recent Salvation.
Having written the pilot for that Bionic Woman reboot, Kalogridis is familiar with cybernetics—and, it must be said, disappointing updates—while her other credits include creating Birds Of Prey, writing the screenplays for Alexander and Shutter Island, and fittingly, working on various James Cameron projects. Lussier is a Wes Craven-mentored writer and director who’s perhaps best known for Drive Angry and My Bloody Valentine 3-D, in the sense that those are things to be "known for." Confirming they can work together, at least, the duo was reportedly hired to write another, original sci-fi film for Ellison’s brother and co-producer David, apparently impressing them enough to be handed the keys to the Terminator franchise. All details on what they plan to do with it remain a secret, of course, except for the high probability of killer robot stuff and the perennially safe bet that Edward Furlong won’t be involved.