The first Terminator film is a timeless classic. Whatever your opinion of the most recent Terminator films, one thing is sure: moviegoers haven’t seemed to care much. First, with the excellent Terminator 2: Judgment Day, James Cameron made a sequel to his original film. Then, things became much more complicated. Without Cameron’s involvement, Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines carried on the plot; Terminator Salvation explored the struggle against the machines in a sort of relaunch; and Terminator Genisys sought to rework the series’ iconography, all to rather unimpressive reviews. The domestic box office receipts of each of the three sequels published in the last fifteen years have declined significantly; in 2019, Terminator: Dark Fate brought in a meager $62 million on a $196 million budget. However, James Cameron, the creator of the trilogy, is developing a new project in his dystopian science fiction universe and thinks he can reverse those diminishing returns.
“This is the moment when you jettison everything that is specific to the last 40 years of Terminator, but you live by those principles,” Empire reported that Cameron said. “You get too inside it, and then you lose a new audience because the new audience care much less about that stuff than you think they do. That’s the danger, obviously, with Avatar as well, but I think we’ve proven that we have something for new audiences.”
What does that mean exactly? Alright, so much for returning actors. No more characters that come back. Start with the franchise’s fundamentals—the elements that initially gave it resonance—and work your way out. Cameron explained it: “You’ve got powerless main characters, essentially, fighting for their lives, who get no support from existing power structures, and have to circumvent them but somehow maintain a moral compass. And then you throw AI into the mix,” he said. “Those principles are sound principles for storytelling today, right? So I have no doubt that subsequent Terminator films will not only be possible, but they’ll kick a**. But this is the moment where you jettison all the specific iconography.”
Of course, Cameron said a lot while making the sixth Terminator movie. “We spent several weeks breaking story and figuring out what type of story we wanted to tell so we would have something to pitch Linda [Hamilton],” Cameron told Deadline. “We rolled up our sleeves and started to break out the story and when we got a handle on something we looked at it as a three-film arc, so there is a greater story there to be told. If we get fortunate enough to make some money with Dark Fate we know exactly where we can go with the subsequent films.” The movie bombed, so lovely words don’t mean much.
Suppose you’re wondering why Cameron is discussing new Terminator films. In that case, the director has been hinting at new ideas for the franchise and upcoming projects for over a year (apart from the forthcoming Netflix series). Although he’s still really coy about what that could signify, it seems a little more developed than we might have thought. “It’s more than a plan,” Cameron declared. “That’s what we’re doing. That’s all I’ll say for right now.” Is there a possible outline for this? Even a screenplay? We’ll have to watch and find out.
[Via Empire]
Do you think the franchise is dead? Or do you think they can make another successful film? Let us know in the comments below!
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