James Cameron says he is “working” on a new Terminator movie — but it won’t feature the franchise’s signature star, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“I can safely say he won’t be [in it],” Cameron told The Hollywood Reporter, adding “It’s time for a new generation of characters. I insisted Arnold had to be involved in [2019’s] Terminator: Dark Fate, and it was a great finish to him playing the T-800. There needs to be a broader interpretation of Terminator and the idea of a time war and super intelligence. I want to do new stuff that people aren’t imagining.”
Dark Fate is the most recent film in the long-running Terminator franchise. While it was directed by Deadpool’s Tim Miller, Cameron was credited as a producer and a co-writer on the project, which was treated as a direct sequel to Cameron’s Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, while ignoring the events of the later sequels (made without Cameron’s involvement) Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator: Salvation, an Terminator: Genisys.
Universal Pictures
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In Dark Fate, Schwarzenegger played an older Terminator robot, explained by suggesting that human flesh covering his metal skeleton appeared to age just like any actual person. This Terminator, which answers to the name “Carl,” killed a young John Connor not long after the events of T2, but then was left with no purpose and no way to return to the future. So it assumed a human identity, became part of a family, and even developed something like grief and regret over his prior violent actions.
Carl was a really fun and interesting role for an aging action star, but Dark Fate was not a hit; it grossed just $261 million worldwide against a rumored budget in the $200 million range. And Schwarzenegger is now 78 years old. They got away with a Terminator in his early 70s in Dark Fate but that really might be pushing it. (Cameron himself is now 71.)
Cameron told THR that “once the dust clears on Avatar in a couple of months, I’m going to really plunge into that” — that being Terminator. He added that the biggest “narrative problem” he needs to solve is “how do I stay enough ahead of what’s really happening to make it science fiction?” I would add: With the world the way it is already, how would anyone notice if it was taken over by evil computers?
Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash premieres in theaters this weekend.
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