Back in December, Skydance Productions and Annapurna Pictures, the production companies founded by siblings David Ellison and Megan Ellison respectively, picked up the rights to the Terminator franchise. The sci-fi action series which was launched into fame by James Cameron has been in limbo for awhile, and doesn't have a studio home yet, but the Ellisons are moving quick to get Terminator 5 off the ground. Deadline reports Avatar and Shutter Island writer Laeta Kalogridis and Drive Angry writer and director Patrick Lussier will both script the sequel based on an idea from Skydance. That's a strange combination.
Lussier has mostly been based in horror as a writer and director, but he's edited other films like D3: The Might Ducks and most recently Apollo 18. Maybe there's something about his approach that they like, and meshing it with a Cameron collaborator like Kalogridis could prove to be lucrative. We're still not sure who will direct since Justin Lin seems to be out of the picture, but there's a good chance Arnold Schwarzenegger will return in some capacity. Hopefully it turns out better than Terminator Salvation. With the producers of Zero Dark Thirty and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol on board, that shouldn't be a problem.