The future of the Terminator franchise is set to be determined in February 2010, when the auction to the rights to it is completed. It's believed that all of the major movie studios are involved in the bidding at some point down the line, and that Halcyon is set to sell to the highest bidder.

And that inevitably puts the sequel to Terminator Salvation under some threat. The film overcame relatively disappointing US box office numbers thanks to some stellar performances elsewhere in the world, locking up the best part of $400m in the process. And it was, if you recall, set to be the first of a new trilogy of films.

Whether that trilogy will continue will, no doubt, be up to whoever stumps up the cash for the rights this time round. But what is clear is that director McG is still keen to finish his work on the franchise.

During the live commentary for Terminator Salvation that he recently did (which was accessible to those who had bought the film on Blu-ray), the man himself revealed that he still has plans for make the fifth and sixth films in the series.

We might be going out on a limb here, but we don't expect that to happen at all. Instead, we'd be surprised if the new rights holders decided to continue the Salvation narrative, and instead are likely to press ahead with a new direction. And we'd also wager that they've had no great desire to see McG return to the director's chair.

All of this is up in the air until February at the least, of course. But we can't imagine that you stump up $50-60m for the Terminator franchise (that's the least we'd imagine it's going to cost) and simply pick up the exact strands that were left behind before. That said, we've been wrong before...