Army Dog says: "Boy, Linda looks ruff!"

As with any Internet meme or YouTube trend, things are bound to get old after one too many people gets in on the joke. In the case of recent celebrity invitations to the Marine Corps Ball on October 29, well, it started off cute and fun, and now it’s pretty weird thanks to 54-year old Terminator actress Linda Hamilton, who is apparently trying to scoop up Betty White’s sloppy seconds.

Last week, Marine Sgt. Ray Lewis made a YouTube video asking lovable geriactress Betty White to be his date to the ball. This was, of course, in response to Sgt. Scott Moore asking Mila Kunis, followed by Cpl. Kelsey De Santis asking Justin Timberlake. While Kunis and Timberlake have accepted (if their schedules don’t conflict, which they probably will), White outright declined because of her busy TV schedule. And that’s where Hamilton steps in:

“Rumor has it that you like your actresses vintage… I know that I am no Betty White, but I would be really, really thrilled if you can’t find anyone else to go to the ball with you, I could go. I’m only half as mature as she is, wink wink, but I am twice as funny, so I think that works out!”

I don’t know what the “wink wink” refers to, but I’m going to assume that if Lewis takes her he’s going to get laid. At least he’ll have a story to tell. Check out Hamilton’s plea for attention after the jump, and then join us as we run our memories through a car wash.

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Arnold in The Expendables 3

Megan Ellison, 25-year-old daughter of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, has quickly become known as some kind of indie movie savior, stepping in to finance films movie dorks (read: people like me) want to see, like Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie about Scientology, an untitled collaboration between Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman, a Bin Laden project from Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow, and just yesterday, Martin McDonagh’s incredible sounding follow up to In Bruges, starring Rourke, Rockwell, Walken, and Farrell, just to name a few.  Now it seems she’s switching gears, acquiring the rights to a project that actually sounds pretty horrible, the next installment of Terminator, which has the Fast Five director attached to direct.

Megan Ellison has won an auction for the rights to make at least two more installments of The Terminator franchise, with Fast Five‘s Justin Lin attached to direct and Arnold Schwarzenegger attached to star. The deal came down to Ellison’s Annapurna Films and Lionsgate, which seemed to have had the project sewn up until she came forward with a dramatic bid. The auction at the time was for a guarantee for at least half of the $29.5 million paid by hedge fund Pacificor to pull the franchise out of bankruptcy. Unclear what the winning amount was, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it hit the $20 million mark. CAA brokered the deal. [Deadline]

There are two ways to look at this (not including the too-good-to-be-true way, that Ellison bought the franchise just so she could take it out behind the barn and shoot it). One being that Megan Ellison’s company needs a project that’s a guaranteed money maker to help pay for the other riskier, indie stuff (much the way I used prostitution to finance my rap career).  The other being that with a more independent financier like Ellison, this project might actually have a chance of being good (and of course, it’s possible that it’s a combination of the two).  But then, maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to jump to conclusions about someone whose name we only first heard a few months ago.  Politics, movie financing, and prostitution are the only industries where things are so bad that it’s normal to say, “Oh God, please hire someone who’s never done this before!”

Look, I like Terminator 2 as much as the next guy, but I’m not sure that means I want to see a flabby, 63-year-old robot in a movie from the guy who directed Fast Five and Annapolis (is it just me or is it bizarre that James Franco was in that?  no joke, I could’ve sworn it was C-Tates). Nonetheless, a new Terminator movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger ( which was first announced a few days ago) is just the kind of idea that will steamroll the hundreds of entirely warranted reservations, solely on the basis that it sounds like it should be a big deal.  That’s just how spectacle works.  The latest news on the project, by way of LatinoReview, is that it will be called “Terminator 2012″, and it could reunite the “entire original cast”.

Or should I say “Terminator 2012” which is the title the pitch is going under right now. It involves time travel back to the present day, and – the exciting and mind-bending part of it all – is that it has the “entire original cast” attached to it, not just Arnie. I don’t know what “entire original cast” means, but it’s safe to assume that AT LEAST means Linda Hamilton is coming back to re-establish herself as the face of Sarah Connor. At best, we somehow get Michael Biehn as some sort of old Kyle Reese…

[UPDATE: Biehn says he hasn't heard anything about it, so take that for what you will.]

Oooh, will they bring back Moon Bloodgood, or Kristanna Loken??? Or maybe even Nick Stahl???? I don’t want to get my hopes up! I don’t know what “original” cast means exactly either, but I can only hope it’s code for… EDDIE F*CKING FURLONG!

Typical child actor

[Thanks for the Arnold pic, Pauly, you Mexican adonis you]

No, you did not misread that headline.  Arnold Schwarzenegger is attached to star in a Terminator sequel currently being shopped around town.  Presumably, it will take place 50 years after Terminator Salvation, when the machines send back a flabby, depressing shell of their previous Terminator to bankrupt the humans’ economy. (I love me some Arnold, and it hurt me to say that, but come on). Oh, and 5 Fast 5 Furious‘s Justin Lin is set to direct.  Oof. And we thought McG was bad.

Schwarzenegger is attached to star in a rights package that CAA is shopping today that will revive The Terminator. I’m told that already, Universal, Sony and Lionsgate, and CBS Films are looking hard at the package.

Some might even say that they’re staring, gaping, virtually salivating over the Schwarzenegger package, ogling it with imaginary goggles like a Brazilian stripper.

This is the first real activity on the Terminator project since February 2010, when the property emerged from a bankruptcy auction and into the possession of Pacificor, a Santa Barbara-based hedge fund, who posted a bid of $29.5 million, with the promise that additional multimillion-dollar payments for each film would go to Halcyon, the company that made Terminator Salvation. Halcyon wanted to make several films but ran out of money.

I wrote back in February that Universal quietly was trying to arrange for Justin Lin to be helmer of the project. At the time, some turned up their noses. Given the strong international grosses being racked up by Fast Five and the expectations for a strong domestic opening this Friday, Lin has a lot of heat. [Deadline]

The one thing I’ve ever seen Justin Lin do that wasn’t terrible (and don’t say Better Luck Tomorrow, that was basically a direct-to-DVD 50 Cent movie with Asians in it) was the Modern Warfare episode of Community (which, to be fair, was awesome). Terminator always demanded a bit of realism, whereas 5 Fast 5 Furious is more like pro wrestling with cars, where it’s constantly rubbing its complete lack of believability in your face to prove just how much you’ll put up with to see sweaty men yell at each other.

I guess once you’ve already let the Charlie’s Angels guy kill the Terminator franchise, the next obvious step is to wrap the coffin in an Ed Hardy shirt and dump a Monster energy drink on it.  That’s what we did for my grandma.  That bitch was XXXtreme.

I DISMISS THIS NEWS A QUARTER WANK AT A TIME:

Shortly after Arnold Schwarzenegger left the Governor’s Mansion and Tweeted his desire to  resume his acting career, there seems to finally be some action on his signature franchise, The Terminator. I’m told that interest is kicking back up. One interested party: Universal, which is looking for a directing vehicle for Justin Lin [the guy who did the last three Fast/Furious movies].

Right around the time the bankruptcy was settled, Deadline also reported that William Wisher–James Cameron’s collaborator on Terminator 2 and an uncredited  co-writer on the original, wrote a 24-page treatment for the next film and a four-page concept outline for a sixth Terminator film. His version continued the post-apocalyptic battleground scenario from Terminator Salvation, but added in the element of time travel. [Deadline]

Let’s see… Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Fast and Furious guy, time travel… I’ve got i!  The Terminator from the second movie goes back in time, and it turns out it’s actually him who taught Michelle Rodriguez to be so hardcore and Latin!

MICHELLE ROD: “Hasta la vista… baby.”

SCHWARZENEGGER/TERMINATOR: “Perfect.”