“The Terminator” franchise just won’t die…maybe. James Cameron revealed on the “Smartless” podcast (via The Playlist) that discussions are taking place about him continuing the long-running action franchise, which kicked off in 1984 on a high but has since experienced one box office flop (“Terminator Genisys”) after another (“Terminator: Dark Fate”). “Dark Fate” was a particularly huge box office bomb with just $261 million worldwide, but that still might not have been enough to kill the franchise.
As Cameron said on the podcast: “If I were to do another ‘Terminator’ film and maybe try to launch that franchise again, which is in discussion, but nothing has been decided, I would make it much more about the AI side of it than bad robots gone crazy.”
“Dark Fate,” which “Deadpool” director Tim Miller helmed from a story by Cameron, was supposed to revive “The Terminator” franchise by reuniting original stars Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Sarah Connor and the T-800 Terminator, respectively. Cameron recently said during his “Avatar: The Way of Water” press tour that he was “reasonably happy” with how “Dark Fate” turned out, but he said bringing back the original stars was the nail in the coffin. It was a point of contention between Cameron and Miller, with Cameron refusing to make “Dark Fate” without Schwarzenegger and Miller only wanting Hamilton back.
“I think the movie could have survived having Linda in it,” Cameron said. “I think it could have survived having Arnold in it, but when you put Linda and Arnold in it and then, you know, she’s 60-something, he’s 70-something, all of a sudden it wasn’t your ‘Terminator’ movie, it wasn’t even your dad’s ‘Terminator’ movie, it was your granddad’s ‘Terminator’ movie. And we didn’t see that.”
Cameron added, “We loved it, we thought it was cool.”
Cameron directed and co-wrote the first two “Terminator” films, with the the 1991 sequel “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” often considered one of the greatest action films ever made. He had no involvement with the three sequels that followed, all of which were panned by critics. “Dark Fate” bombed at the box office, but did it receive somewhat positive reviews.