Deadline reports that negotiations began soon after the script went out last week and that McG, who’s currently directing the 20th Century Fox comedy “This Means War” with Reese Witherspoon, Tom Hardy and Chris Pine, will produce.

And although his plans to play Mad Max in the George Miller-directed “Mad Max: Fury Road” has hit another snag, the burgeoning superstar sits atop the heap for another high profile role at Warner Bros.

Deadline reports that “Inception” helmer, Christopher Nolan, has selected Hardy for a lead role in the third “Batman” film.

Naturally, all involved are tight-lipped about exactly what role Hardy will be playing, refusing to even comment on whether he’ll be a good guy or a bad guy.

Hardy is currently starring with Chris Pine and Reese Witherspoon in the McG-directed Fox comedy “This Means War.”

Development has been underway at Disney for months on an updated screen version of the classic Jules Verne story, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” with McG (“Terminator Salvation”) attached to direct. THR’s Heatvision blog is now reporting that Disney has cut McG from the project because his vision was too dark for the material.  The studio is currently in talks with David Fincher to direct, and “Bourne Ultimatum” writer, Scott Z. Burns, to pen the script.

It’s ironic that the studio has decided to go with Fincher as an alternative to McG’s darker take on the story considering Fincher’s pitch black track record of R-rated nihilistically-tinged films like “Fight Club,” “Zodiac,” and “Seven.”  But it was reportedly Fincher who approached newly hired production head, Sean Bailey, with the idea of doing a “four-quadrant tentpole movie.”

Verne’s original story, published in 1869, focuses on a group of men who encounter a crazed scientist and his militaristic submarine.  The classic science fiction novel is in the public domain, but Disney has been most prominently associated with the material since the studio’s 1954 version that starred Kirk Douglas.

Details about the story are being kept under tight wraps but the Fincher/Burns version of the tale is described as being in the vein of “Star Wars.”

Variety reports that Pacificor LLC, which acquired the franchise rights at auction last week, is receiving a great deal of interest from “numerous” Hollywood producers, financiers, studios and agents.

Pacificor, a Santa Barbara-based hedge fund with no experience in film production, has appointed Latham & Watkins partners Wayne S. Flick and Russell F. Sauer to deal with inquiries about the rights to the time-travelin’ cyborg.

“While Pacificor is not in the theatrical feature production business, it does have access to considerable industry expertise and will consult with those experts over the next few weeks regarding all serious proposals,” a spokesman for Pacificor said.

The fund received approval on Feb. 10 in bankruptcy court for its offer of $29.5 million, along with a provision for payment to the franchise’s former owners Halcyon of $5 million per film for any sequel.

“Pacificor is proud to own one of the most enduring and valuable global franchises in motion picture history,” Pacificor CEO Andrew B. Mitchell said in a statement Wednesday. “Since James Cameron first introduced us to his vision in 1984, the ‘Terminator’ series has generated approximately $3 billion in box office and ancillary revenues. The franchise is known around the world, in all important territories, and the DVD of ‘Terminator Salvation’ continues in circulation.”

Mitchell also indicated that the popularity of 3D technology may help make future sequels viable.

The good news in all of this is that McG isn’t totally clueless as to why “Salvation” sucked as much as it did.  He recently spoke to IGN and stated, “…we did a lot of things right in [Salvation] and we did many things wrong in that movie. And we’ll learn from the experience and we’ll grow and I think the next movie is going to be even more exciting and a better film.”

When asked about the specifics of the storyline for “Terminator 5″ his said, “One of the problems is that in a post-apocalyptic world, everybody’s a little bummed out because your brother melted… your friends are gone. Everything went haywire. So the idea is to play with one of the tried and true rules of the franchise – time travel – and introduce it in this picture. I don’t want to share too much, but let’s just say it’s very, very likely that John Connor is going to end up running through rooms like this where he knows something that none of us know. And I think that is a platform for great storytelling.”

The in-demand Aussie who starred in McG’s “Terminator Salvation” will be joining Oscar-winning actress, Charlize Theron, on the remake of the 2005 French spy thriller the centers on an American tourist manipulated by a female Interpol agent in Europe.

Cruise had been considering joining the cast for nearly a year until he finally passed on the project for the untitled James Mangold project at Fox.

Bharat Nalluri (“Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day”) will be directing the script penned by Julian Fellowes and Jeffrey Nachmanoff.

Worthington next stars in the highly anticipated James Cameron flick “Avatar,” which Fox will release in December.

Theron’s next endeavors are Guillermo Arriaga’s directorial debut, “The Burning Plain,” which is due for release in September, and the Cormac McCarthy adaptation “The Road,” in theaters in October.

“Terminator Salvation” director, McG, will helm and produce the project with Idealogy’s Sean Bailey also producing.

“Nemo” will center on the origins of Captain Nemo and his submarine warship, the Nautilus.

Wallace will also be directing “Secretariat,” starring Diane Lane, for Disney. The racehorse drama is set to begin shooting in late September.

Overseas, however, it was quite a different story. In an unprecedented, and truly baffling turn of fortune, the awful, awful McG-directed film, “Terminator Salvation” somehow took the No. 1 spot in over 30 territories making $46.1 million from 10,500 screens out of the 80 territories it landed distribution.

The full domestic box office numbers for the weekend of June 12-14:

1. The Hangover $33.4M
2. Up $30.5M
3. The Taking of Pelham 123 $25.0M
4. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian $9.6M
5. Land of the Lost $9.1M
6. Imagine That $5.7M
7. Star Trek $5.6M
8. Terminator Salvation $4.6M
9. Angels & Demons $4.2M
10. Drag Me to Hell $3.8M

I don’t know about you, but for me, this is awful news.  As long as McG and Christian Bale are involved I will have absolutely no interest.  How could I after the abomination that was “Salvation?”  That piece of dreck is easily one of the top five worst films of the year.

At least we may get to see a post-apocalyptic London, a la “Reign of Fire,” but that isn’t much of a consolation.