Opinion: Writers Hired for 'Terminator 5'

You've probably heard by now that Terminator franchise rights holder Megan Ellison (and her production company, Annapurna Pictures, alongside her brother David's own company, Skydance Productions) has brought on Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier to write the screenplay for the tentatively titled Terminator 5.

Many Terminator fans were quick to call this annoucement bad news as Lussier is most notably known for writing and directing My Blood Valentine 3D and Kalogridis' best work coming in the form of doing some writing and producing work on Avatar (James Cameron connection there).

While it's easy to judge a book by its cover and assume this is already going in the wrong direction, don't be so quick to make that assumption.  You don't know what idea the makers behind this new film have in mind, not to mention many talented filmmakers in Hollywood have their share of bad projects when first getting started (Cameron himself with Piranha 2, the first half of Ben Affleck's career).

I would also be sure to take note that typically with these big budget films, initial writers are brought on to work on an outline and get the action pieces on paper, followed by a more 'textured' and 'complex' writer to clean it up (most notably James Bond's Casino Royale and Skyfall which had Paul Haggis and John Logan, respectively, take a final run through on those scripts and look how they turned out).

Ultimately, what I'm saying is to be so quick to jump ship on a vessel that barely left the peir (unless those writers are named John Brancato and Michael Ferris or the ship is called Titanic).