Kickstart this: A mash-up of 'Terminator' and Shakespeare

Posted Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 4:31 PM Central

by John Couture

Every so often I notice something on Kickstarter that piques my interest. In this case, it was the unlikely pairing of William Shakespeare and James Cameron's Terminator 2.

For those of you unfamiliar Kickstarter, it's basically a really cool site that allows you to attempt to crowd-source your creative project. Someone comes up with a cool idea for a film, play or whatever and if you like said idea, you can support it with a pledge.

Usually, pledges at certain levels come with an increasing number of benefits. The more you pledge, the more benefits you receive. Also, each campaign has a set time limit to raise its targeted goal of funds. If it doesn't surpass its goal, the project is scrapped and your pledge dissolves.

You may recall that early on filmmaker Kevin Smith was looking into a similar crowd-sourced funding strategy for his latest film Red State.

This project put forth by Husky Jackal Theater will aim to adapt Terminator 2 to the stage using dialog entirely comprised from the works of William Shakespeare. That's right, we'll surely hear someone resembling Arnold Schwarzenegger utter the words, "John Connor oh John Connor, wherefore art thou oh John Connor."

Well, maybe not. But the project sounds pretty exciting to say the least and the best part (for me) is that it's from a local Nashville group so the likelihood of me being able to actually see this play is pretty high.

For that reason alone, I will be donating at the $50 level to insure two tickets to a performance. Don't live near Nashville? That's ok, for $55 they'll record a performance on DVD and ship one to you.

That way you can enjoy the prose of Shakespeare's words being delivered by machines over and over again. While they have met their initial goal (yay, which means the project will see the light of day!), all proceeds that they collect will be used to make the production better.

At this rate, they might secure enough financing to get James Cameron himself to direct it. For now, check out this trailer below and their page by clicking here.