Terminator: Dark Fate ($261 Million Worldwide Box Office)

He’ll be back! James Cameron, who regains certain rights to his prized creation The Terminator in 2019, is godfathering a new iteration of the film that might finally get it right in drawing a close in the battle between humans and Skynet. Sources said that Cameron, whose copyright reversion happens 35 years after the release of the 1984 classic, is in early talks with Deadpool director and VFX wiz Tim Miller to direct a reboot and conclusion of one of cinema’s great science fiction tales.

David Ellison, whose Skydance co-financed Terminator Genisys, is bankrolling an exploratory effort that includes engaging some top-flight science fiction authors to find the movie creatively. Ellison still holds many Terminator rights, after his 2013 acquisition from sister and Annapurna principal Megan Ellison. She bought them in 2011 at Cannes for $20 million.

This is the latest development in an ongoing saga. Indeed, The Terminator might have endured the craziest road of any billion-dollar movie franchise, going back to when Cameron — who only had Piranha 2 under his belt as director — sold rights to his scripted project for $1 to producer Gale Anne Hurd, with the stipulation he could not be fired as director. The result was a 1984 sci-fi classic that launched his star and that of  Arnold Schwarzenegger. Cameron came back and topped himself to write and direct he blockbuster Terminator 2: Judgment Day, but he washed his hands of the property after that. He mentioned to producers Mario Kassar and Andy Vajna his plans to buy the rights back from Carolco bankruptcy. They beat him to the punch, figuring he would still participate, but Cameron responded by walking away. He didn’t participate in the three films that followed, or the TV show The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The rights ended up with Pacificor, which paid $29.5 million, and Megan Ellison bought them after that company floundered.

Cameron has had zero involvement since then, and has largely been silent. The exception was on the last picture, Terminator Genisys. Perhaps because his old buddy and True Lies star Schwarzenegger had returned as the title character, Cameron was generous in his assessment, reportedly saying that the Alan Taylor-directed film had reinvigorated and created a renaissance for the franchise.

Audiences disagreed and the franchise seemed out of gas when the $155 million film grossed $440 million worldwide, but didn’t do nearly well enough in the U.S. Perhaps Cameron was foreshadowing his own future return to the franchise. Much the way that Sony used to rush Spider-Man movies to stay ahead of a rights-reversion ticking clock, it was always known that Cameron would regain clout eventually. It didn’t seem that Skydance or Paramount had much interest continuing the creative track of the last film, but real creative involvement by Cameron, even if he doesn’t direct, changes the whole ballgame. One only has to look at Aliens, True Lies, Titanic or Avatar to see what he is capable of creatively when he puts his mind to something.

I don’t know anything more than I’ve disclosed here, including whether they reboot the whole thing or pick up from where Cameron left off after the second film. I’ve heard the hope is for Miller to direct whatever they come up with. Cameron is booked for four Avatar sequels, to shoot two at a time. No comment from any of the involved parties.

James Cameron Considering a New ‘Terminator’ Trilogy

The Terminator franchise has not been downright “good” since 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, but hopefully that’s about to change. In 2018, the rights to the Terminator franchise revert back to James Cameron, and the originator of the series has been working with current rights holder David Ellison to make plans to reinvigorate the series. Word leaked in January that Cameron was looking to oversee a new Terminator reboot, with Deadpool director Tim Miller eyed to take the helm, but nothing has been officially announced just yet.

However, in speaking with News.com.au (via CS), Cameron reveals that he’s envisioning not just one franchise reboot, but a new trilogy:

“The question is — has the franchise run its course or can it be freshened up? So I am in discussions with David Ellison, who is the current rights holder globally for the Terminator franchise and the rights in the US market revert to me under US copyright law in a year and a half, so he and I are talking about what we can do. Right now we are leaning toward doing a three-film arc and reinventing it.”

Of course, a new Terminator trilogy was also the plan when Terminator: Genisys was made, and that dreadful redo (really a cross between a straight remake and a reboot) performed poorly at the box office and was savaged by critics. Ellison’s Skydance Productions produced Genisys and had long, overarching plans for the franchise, so it’s heartening to hear that Ellison is still interested in getting Terminator right, and obviously bringing Cameron into the fold is a big win.

The rights don’t revert to Cameron until next year, so nothing official can happen until then and Cameron is plenty busy finally getting ready to start production on the first two Avatar sequels, but it’s certainly intriguing to hear that he seems invested in trying to bring Terminator back in a big way.

UltimateMarvel wrote:A trilogy is all you needed to tell a good story. Everything after Terminator 2 was just bad. Reboot it, bring back Arnold because he's amazing in this role and cast Tom Hardy and John Connor. There is your start!

Isn't Cameron busy with making those terrible Avatar sequels? If he dropped those and focused on this, that would be great. He needs to finish what he started with this franchise. It's been too damn long.

Tyger wrote:All we know that he's done in the last years is remaster and 3D convert Titanic and T2

Tyger wrote:He got a hard on for exploring the ocean for a long ass time

He'll be back. And we aren't going to have to wait all that long for it to happen. We've been hearing buzz about Terminator creator James Cameron working on a Terminator reboot in recent months, with a recent report from the director himself saying that there is a plan for a potential trilogy. Arnold Schwarzenegger also said that he is going to return and now he has reiterated that, as well as providing us with the news that the new Terminator movie is going to shoot next year.

The news comes courtesy of The Playlist and according to their report, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who just turned 70, is going to once again take on his deadly android persona for what will be Terminator 6. The news came during an extensive interview in which the actor provided very brief updates on several projects, such as the Twins sequel Triplets, the new Conan movie and, most significantly, this new Terminator movie. Here's what he had to say about it.

"In March next year, I am shooting Terminator 6,' James Cameron and David Ellison are back on board and then comes a 'Conan."

There is quite a bit to unpack here even though Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't say much about it. For one, he calls it Terminator 6, which is in itself interesting. Terminator: Genisys was a complete failure across the board, so it seems like the best way to press on would be a reboot of some kind. But is this going to continue the Genisys storyline somehow? Or are they just going to use some complicated time travel plot line to reset things again? That remains to be seen, but Schwarzenegger's presence is going to provide some connective tissue no matter what the case.

David Ellison is the man who currently holds the rights to the Terminator franchise, but the rights are set to revert back to James Cameron in 2019. By the sound of things, it seems like they are working together to make this newly proposed Terminator trilogy happen. It was reported a few months ago that Deadpool director Tim Miller is set to direct the new Terminator movie. Sadly, Cameron is going to be up to his eyeballs directing not one but four Avatar sequels over the next handful of years. So it is tough to even imagine he can be all that hands-on as a producer, but having him back with the franchise in any capacity can't hurt.

It is worth noting that Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about stuff a lot that doesn't always wind up happening. Case in point, the Conan movie he mentions is dead when writer Chris Morgan last updated everyone on it. And he has been talking about the Twins sequel for years. But with James Cameron and David Ellison both talking about the Terminator Reboot this year as well, this seems very plausible. All we can do is hope that we finally get something that is worthy of the legacy left behind by Terminator 2: Judgement Day. If nothing else, T2 is getting a 3D release next year, so we have that to look forward to.

Just one day after Arnold Schwarzenegger revealed that he'll start shooting the new Terminator reboot next March, producer James Cameron has offered an intriguing update. While promoting the upcoming 3D release of his 1991 classic Terminator 2: Judgment Day, James Cameron teased that Arnold Schwarzenegger will be playing a human character, whose DNA served as the basis for the T-800 Terminator models. Here's what the filmmaker had to say below.

   "You got to ask yourself, 'Why did they make these characters look and sound like Arnold? There has to be a reason. So yeah, it has flashed through my mind that there has to have been a prototype. There has to have been a guy who's DNA was harvested from, that they grew the organic outer layer that they grew the Terminator from...and that presumably was a real person at some point. Now, the question is, did that person have some sort of meaning to Skynet on WHY they chose that one (Arnold)? Or was it like a whole rack of Terminators and the one that happened to be the Arnold model just happened to be closest to the door going out to the time displacement center and all the others looked different? I've asked myself these questions but it's never been resolved...so stay tuned! We're talking pretty seriously now about doing some new Terminator films or possibly a trilogy and you'll just have to see what surfaces in those."

This statement comes through a Q&A with The Arnold Fans, although it seems the director is unaware that this type of sequence has already been attempted before. There was a scene in 2003's Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which James Cameron was not involved with and was directed by Jonathan Mostow, although it wasn't included in the theatrical cut of the film. The scene in question, which you can watch below, showcases all of the technological achievements of this new company CRS, which obtained all of the patents from Cyberdyne Systems, to create these Terminator robots, who were all based on a man named Chief Master Sergeant William Candy (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who has an atrocious Texas accent.

Still, even if James Cameron is aware of this Sergeant Candy scene, that may in fact be the inspiration to get this right, since the scene is quite cringe-worthy. James Cameron also teased last month that he's planning on producing an all new Terminator trilogy, adding that he's in discussions with David Ellison of Skydance Productions, who currently holds the worldwide rights to the Terminator franchise, with the U.S. rights reverting back to James Cameron in 2019, 35 years after his first Terminator movie. James Cameron revealed last month that he's "leaning towards" a new trilogy that will reinvent the entire franchise.

Tim Miller (Deadpool) is directing this new Terminator movie, although it isn't ultimately clear if he worked on the script, or who was brought on to write this Terminator Reboot. If production does in fact get started next March, that could put this new movie on track to hit theaters in 2019, just as the U.S. domestic rights to the film revert back to James Cameron.

UltimateMarvel wrote:No, this is great news FB. Don't you see what's happening? Cameron is reading my posts. Mr. Cameron, I'd just like to say thank you for taking the time to listen to my ideas.   But seriously, if Tom Hardy is cast next............CONFIRMED!

Tim Miller is officially onboard to direct Terminator 6 with James Cameron producing. After multiple poor attempts to revitalize the franchise, the rights to Terminator are finally poised to revert back to Cameron come 2019. As a result, he has been working on a way to revitalize the franchise in a big way. However, as he has already lined up four additional Avatar films, he was looking for a partner in this endeavor.

Once it was revealed that Cameron planned to reboot the franchise – one that is expected to wipe clean anything after T2: Judgement Day – Tim Miller’s name was instantly said to be in talks to direct. Yet, in the months since, there has been no word on whether or not the deal was closed.

Thanks to a social media post from Skydance, shared by Skynet’s Army, it has finally been confirmed that Miller will indeed direct the next Terminator film. The confirmation comes courtesy of an invite to a special 3D screening of T2 that will feature a conversation with Cameron and Miller before the movie starts. Here is a brief description of what to expect:

Join filmmakers James Cameron and Tim Miller on the Paramount Lot for an exclusive conservation with The Hollywood Reporter’s Matt Belloni about their collaboration on the upcoming Terminator.

WyldeMan wrote:If Ryan Reynolds ends up as the next Terminator, I will lose my fucking mind.....

But Brolin is currently shredded from his Cable role.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Tim did a great job with Deadpool. Brolin as John Connor? That would be awesome. I can believe him as the leader of the resistance especially now that he's shredded.

Linda Hamilton Returning as Sarah Connor

Sarah Connor is coming back.  After more than 25 years, Linda Hamilton is set to return to the Terminator cinematic universe for a new installment of the sci-fi franchise, Deadline has confirmed. The actress will reunite with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who will reprise his role as the killing machine from the future as well as James Cameron, who directed her in the original film as well as Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Deadline revealed back in January that Cameron was returning to his storied franchise creation for films that would be directed by Deadpool’s Tim Miller and would properly finish the ahead of its time humans vs Skynet storyline.

Cameron made the announcement during a private event saying, “As meaningful as she was to gender and action stars everywhere back then, it’s going to make a huge statement to have that seasoned warrior that she’s become return.” He adds, “There are 50-year-old, 60-year-old guys out there killing bad guys, but there isn’t an example of that for women.”

With the rise in younger-skewing female action stars, Hamilton will school these young women on how it is really done. Fans will definitely look forward to the continuation of her badass, action-packed performance in T2, where she was seen doing chin-ups in a mental institution, firing guns off like a boss, and beating down men twice her size.

Cameron and Skydance are set to produce while Miller directs. The movie will be based on a story by Cameron and Paramount will distribute domestically, while Fox will handle international. A trilogy is being planned in a writers room that includes David Goyer, Chris Eglee, Justin Rhodes, and Josh Friedman.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Wow! Wasn't expecting this at all.

ForeverBlu wrote:Their divorce was quite nasty, to be a fly on the wall when filming begins.

UltimateMarvel wrote:They were married? I had no idea.

UltimateMarvel wrote:They were married? I had no idea.

Rusty wrote:I still haven't seen a single Terminator film since T2. Don't even remember that very well.

ForeverBlu wrote:Cameron has been married five times.

First wife wasn't in the biz.

Second wife, was Gale Anne Hurd.

Their marriage ended, due to an affair.

With Kathryn Bigalow, who became wife  number three.

That marriage ended, due to an onset affair Cameron had with Linda.

That produced a child.

Cameron and Linda got married in 1997.

Barely lasted a year, he started an onset affair with Suzy Amis.

While they were filming Titanic.

Linda got a huge divorce settlement, reportedly 50 million.

Cameron has been married to Amis since 2000.

They have three children, she retired from acting in the late 90's.

Rusty wrote:I still haven't seen a single Terminator film since T2. Don't even remember that very well.

ForeverBlu wrote:After Cameron, Gale was briefly married to Brian DePalma.

They have a daughter.

He's an asshole.

While filming Abyss, he was verbally abusive towards Mary Elizabeth Masterantonio.

According to reports back then, it got so bad that Ed Harris had to step in.
The word is, he allegedly punched Cameron in the face.

A similar situation occurred, with Kate Winslet while filming Titanic.

My guess both actresses refused his advances.

Plus he constantly made fun of Winslet's weight.

Both Winslet and Leo vowed to never work with him again.

joey con carne wrote:Probably started making fun of her weight because she wouldn't mess around with him. He sounds like a total cocksucker.

Kate Winslet was beautiful in Titanic. Hell, she's still beautiful today! Speaking of which, I want to see The Mountain Between Us.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Again, didn't know about any of this. Seeing him in a whole different way now.

ForeverBlu wrote:Don't think he tried that shit with Sigourney Weaver.

During Aliens, he was married to Gale and she was onset the entire
production.

Also was a stand in for Jeanette Goldstein/Pvt Vasquez.

Plus Sigourney doesn't strike as one for any type of bullshit.

Paramount announced that the James Cameron-produced and Tim Miller-directed Terminator will hit screens on July 26, 2019. Skydance Media is a producer on the latest film in the long-running franchise.

A writers room for the film is assembled with David Goyer, Charles Eglee, Josh Friedman and Justin Rhodes and producer David Ellison, as well as Cameron. Word is the next three films will include Arnold Schwarzenegger along with the original star of the first two movies, Linda Hamilton.

The end of July is a sweet spot on the calendar for Paramount. That’s where it bowed Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, which became the second highest-grossing title in its franchise worldwide with $682.7M.

Currently, the only title on the calendar on July 26, 2019, is an untitled Sony Pictures Animation film. Two weeks prior, Paramount has the Top Gun sequel on July 12, and the following weekend Disney has Jon Favreau’s live-action version of The Lion King.

Cameron and Deadpool director Tim Miller sit down with THR to talk for the first time about how they will reboot a storied but troubled franchise for the new era of Amazon drones and AI anxiety: "People ask me, 'Will the machines ever win against humanity?' I say, 'Look at people on their phones. The machines have already won.'"

By all objective measures, The Terminator represents the most feared cautionary tale of modern Hollywood: a broken franchise. Thirty-three years after Arnold Schwarzenegger became an international star playing a killer robot sent from the future to kill the mother of the leader of a postapocalyptic rebellion, there have been four sequels (and one TV series), and the three films without the involvement of creator James Cameron have turned off fans and led the property to bounce from studio to studio and reboot to reboot.

Terminator: Genisys, a 2015 installment made by financier David Ellison's Skydance Media (Ellison bought rights from his sister, Megan Ellison, who acquired them in a 2011 auction for $20 million), seemingly, uh, terminated the prospect of future films.

But this is Hollywood 2017, and no major franchise is truly dead. Ellison, along with distributor Paramount (Fox has international rights), has persuaded Cameron, who on Sept. 25 began filming four Avatar sequels, to shepherd a new Terminator for the era of Amazon drones, Facebook news bots and artificial intelligence-fueled anxiety. Calling it "a return to form that I believe fans of the franchise have been wanting since Terminator 2: Judgment Day," Ellison, 34, has for the past year worked secretly with Cameron and Deadpool's Tim Miller, who will direct the untitled sequel for a July 26, 2019, release. They assembled a writers room with scribes David Goyer, Charles Eglee, Josh Friedman and Justin Rhodes as well as Ellison, a lifelong Terminator fan (Cameron himself shows up once a week), and have crafted what they want to be a trilogy with Schwarzenegger, 70, and original star Linda Hamilton, 61, passing the torch to a young female lead.

The team hopes it's launching the equivalent of the new Star Wars trilogy — but with the most successful filmmaker of all time pulling the strings. To unveil their plans and explain why the Terminator franchise is still relevant amid 21st century fears, Cameron, 63, and Miller, 47, joined The Hollywood Reporter's editorial director Matthew Belloni for a discussion Sept. 19 on the Paramount lot in Hollywood. An edited transcript follows, and a separate Q&A with Cameron on Avatar, Trump and his recent Wonder Woman critiques is here.

Jim, why do you want to do this? You can do anything. These are movies you made a long time ago.

TIM MILLER I've got some pictures on him that he doesn't want published. (Laughs.)

JAMES CAMERON There's a pride of authorship in anything that you do, and when David and I started talking about this, it made sense for me to see if there was a way to bring it into this century and to relevance. I look at what's happening now with the emergence of artificial general intelligence equal to or greater than humans', and you've got Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking and others saying that this could be really bad for the survival of the human race. What was science fiction in the '80s is now imminent. It's coming over the horizon at us. And there's been a resurgence of fear and concern about nuclear weapons and so on. So all of these apocalyptic elements are out there. The first two Terminator films that I did dealt with the angst around that and how we reconcile it for ourselves in a fantasy context. So I got excited about the idea of finding a story that made sense for now.

So what does a James Cameron-produced Terminator movie look like in 2017?

CAMERON This is a continuation of the story from Terminator 1 and Terminator 2. And we're pretending the other films were a bad dream. Or an alternate timeline, which is permissible in our multi-verse. This was really driven more by [Tim] than anybody, surprisingly, because I came in pretty agnostic about where we took it. The only thing I insisted on was that we somehow revamp it and reinvent it for the 21st century.

MILLER The [first] films are more relevant today than they were when he made them. A lot of it seems like prognostication because it's coming to be — the world we live in right now.

The conflict between technology and humanity is a theme in a lot of Jim's movies. Does technology scare you?

CAMERON Technology has always scared me, and it's always seduced me. People ask me: "Will the machines ever win against humanity?" I say: "Look around in any airport or restaurant and see how many people are on their phones. The machines have already won." It's just [that] they've won in a different way. We are co-evolving with our technology. We're merging. The technology is becoming a mirror to us as we start to build humanoid robots and as we start to seriously build AGI — general intelligence — that's our equal. Some of the top scientists in artificial intelligence say that's 10 to 30 years from now. We need to get the damn movies done before that actually happens! And when you talk to these guys, they remind me a lot of that excited optimism that nuclear scientists had in the '30s and '40s when they were thinking about how they could power the world. And taking zero responsibility for the idea that it would instantly be weaponized. The first manifestation of nuclear power on our planet was the destruction of two cities and hundreds of thousands of people. So the idea that it can't happen now is not the case. It can happen, and it may even happen.

MILLER Jim is a more positive guy [than I am] in the present and more cynical about the future. I know Hawking and Musk think we can put some roadblocks in there. I'm not so sure we can. I can't imagine what a truly artificial intelligence will make of us. Jim's brought some experts in to talk to us, and it's really interesting to hear their perspective. Generally, they're scared as shit, which makes me scared.

CAMERON One of the scientists we just met with recently, she said: "I used to be really, really optimistic, but now I'm just scared." Her position on it is probably that we can't control this. It has more to do with human nature. Putin recently said that the nation that perfects AI will dominate or conquer the world. So that pretty much sets the stage for "We wouldn't have done it, but now those guys are doing it, so now we have to do it and beat them to the punch." So now everybody's got the justification to essentially weaponize AI. I think you can draw your own conclusions from that.

MILLER When it happens, I don't think AI's agenda will be to kill us. That seems like a goal that's beneath whatever enlightened being that they're going to become because they can evolve in a day what we've done in millions of years. And I don't think that they have the built-in deficits that we have, because we're still dealing with the same kind of urges that made us climb down from the trees and kill everybody else. I choose to believe that they'll be better than us.

CAMERON At the very least, they will reflect our best and worst nature because we make them and we program them. But it's going to take a lot of money. So who's got the money to do it and the will to do it? It could be business, so the Googles and the other big tech companies. And if you're doing it for business, you're doing it to improve your market share or whatever your business goals are. So you're essentially taking a machine smarter than a human and teaching it greed. Or it's for defense, in which case you're taking a machine smarter than a human and teaching it to kill. Neither one of those has a good outcome in my mind.

Will there be a day, as in Terminator, where people will look back and say, "This is the day that machines became aware"?

CAMERON It probably won't be that dramatic and will probably happen off-camera to us, and we'll suddenly be living in a world where that has happened.

MILLER I'm a little more worried about programs gone wrong. For instance, if you invented a program where the goal was to search out and destroy cancer — if you're not careful, humans are a source of cancer, so [programs could] wipe humanity out. That's not an AI gone wrong. That's a program gone wrong.

Jim, has your opinion on this subject changed since you had the original idea for the Terminator story 35 years ago?

CAMERON I'll be honest. At the time, I was just trying to get a plot mechanism where somebody could be an enemy from the future so that I could shoot in the streets of L.A.

Arnold and Linda Hamilton are coming back. What was your conversation like with them?

CAMERON Well, Arnold just expected to come back. So that was easy. I approached Linda to see if she'd even be interested. And …

MILLER Jim was fucking terrified.

CAMERON I was. It took me a week just to get up the nerve. No, that's not true. Linda and I have a great relationship. We've stayed friends through the thick and thin of it all. And she is the mother of my eldest daughter. [They were married from 1997 to 1999.] So I called her up, and I said: "Look, we could rest on our laurels. It's ours to lose, in a sense. We created this thing several decades ago. But, here's what can be really cool. You can come back and show everybody how it's done." Because in my mind, it hasn't been done a whole lot since the way she did it back in '91.

MILLER As strong a character as she was, as meaningful as she was to gender and to action stars everywhere, I think it's going to make a huge fucking statement to have her be the really seasoned warrior that she's become.

CAMERON There are certainly plenty of 50-, 60-, 70-something guys out there that just keep cranking along doing action movies and killing bad guys left and right. But there isn't an example of that for women, and I think there should be.

MILLER Which is why we're bringing Liam Neeson in as the bad guy. And she is going to kick his ass. (Laughs.)

CAMERON She fucks him up.
Hamilton in <em>T2</em>. Says Cameron of asking his ex-wife to return to the franchise: &quot;It took me a week to get up the nerve. No, that's not true. Linda and I have stayed friends through the thick and thin of it all.&quot;

Hamilton in T2. Says Cameron of asking his ex-wife to return to the franchise: "It took me a week to get up the nerve. No, that's not true. Linda and I have stayed friends through the thick and thin of it all."

He retired recently. He said he's done with action movies.

MILLER Did he? That's 'cause he was afraid Sarah Connor was going to kick his ass.

Tim, you had a lot of heat coming off of Deadpool, and instead of doing something that is not based on pre-existing material, you decided to do this. Why this?

MILLER: To some degree, all the stories that I love are based on pre-existing materials as either a book I love or a movie I love. And I don’t make a whole lot of distinction between those two things. Story is story. I mean, I wanted to make Deadpool 2. I was going to do that, until I wasn’t. So, there was that, which took up about seven months of my time. But even then, David and I were talking, like afterDeadpool 2, it was going to be this [Terminator].

So, we can thank Ryan Reynolds for you doing this?

CAMERON: Thank you, Ryan.

MILLER: Yeah, if you want. I felt like there was more stories to tell there, but I’m happy that somebody else is telling them. And I’ve got to tell you, there was a sense of relief in that I get to do something new versus Deadpool 2. I think it would’ve been a great movie, but it was also going to be a continuation of what we had done. This really is gave me a chance to do something new.

Are you planning to introduce new stars for future movies, like the Star Wars model?

CAMERON Absolutely, yeah. A lot of this is handing off the baton to a new generation of characters. We're starting a search for an 18-something young woman to essentially be the new centerpiece of these stories. And then a number of other characters around her and characters from the future. We still fold time in the story in intriguing ways. But we have Arnold's character and Linda's character to anchor it. Somewhere across there, and I won't say where, the baton gets passed, so to speak.

This summer was not a good one for the box office. Why do you think people aren't going to theaters? What's the solution?

CAMERON Look, I don't know what the answer is for the industry at large. I don't think the industry at large is hurting that much. A lot of the good writing is now in television, and I think that feature films could benefit from better writing and better character work in general and a little less spectacle. Not that I don't like spectacle, but I like it at the right moment. You just have to make good movies. Pretty simple.

MILLER There weren't a whole lot of movies that I wanted to go see this year. The Big Sick was, I think, one of the best movies I saw this summer, and it's not my kind of movie even.

Tim, you've made one movie. Do you feel intimidated working with Jim?

MILLER Every minute of the day. But I also feel honored. If Jim didn't think I could do it, I wouldn't be there. And that gives me confidence. He could fire me later and decide:

"Why did I believe in this guy? He's a tool."

They do that these days. If it was a Star Wars movie, it could happen.

CAMERON Yeah, no kidding.

MILLER Touche, touche.

CAMERON Don't let that revolving door hit you on the back of the head.

MILLER And you know what? It's a similar situation there. Somebody does a good film, then they think: "Well, he must be a great director." So, it could totally be true in my case. But I don't think that's the case.

Now an uncomfortable question. Arnold is going to be 71 years old when this shoots. How do you get around that fact?

CAMERON: You don’t have to get around it. The beauty of it is: He’s a cyborg. And so, the org part is on the outside, meaning organism. And Reese says it in the first film: “They sweat. They have bad breath.” Because they were supposed to be infiltration units, so there’s this idea that flesh sort of sheaths over a metal endo-skeleton. So that would age normally. So, obviously he’s one that’s been in action and operation for a long time. And that’s all I want to say about the actual story part of it.

MILLER: I haven’t talked to Arnold about this so I could get in trouble. But because he’s been in all the other movies — unlike Linda — I do think there needs to be a reason to be different here. I like my sci-fi grounded. I like my characters grounded. And what Jim said about the exterior aging while the interior remains the same — well, not the interior, as in the brain, as emotionally and intellectually he will have evolved. They’re learning machines. But that’s a way to make it different than it was. Even in Genisys, he looked — I should stop — he was a slightly gussied-up version of the old Terminator. I think we should embrace his age. And that’s what’s going to make it interesting and fresh for the fans.

Jim, you're handing over the keys to your baby to someone who doesn't have much experience.

CAMERON Look, we're both taking a risk. That's the nature of the director-producer relationship. But I feel really confident. We're already about seven or eight months into the creative process, and we haven't killed each other yet. There's been some fur flying, but it's always been for the right reason. I feel Tim's commitment. I feel David's commitment. They feel my commitment. That's it. We're brothers-in-arms at this point.

UltimateMarvel wrote:If they did that, I would lose all respect for this franchise. After ALL the building and hype of the John Connor character? No way! We've yet to see the real John Connor, leader of the resistance. A trilogy is needed to show exactly how he's the hero that he is.

WyldeMan wrote:

UltimateMarvel wrote:If they did that, I would lose all respect for this franchise. After ALL the building and hype of the John Connor character? No way! We've yet to see the real John Connor, leader of the resistance. A trilogy is needed to show exactly how he's the hero that he is.

But it's 2017 so expect JC to have fathered a daughter to lead the franchise into the future and I bet to add further space between Genysis and T6 they'll take the "diversity" approach.

UltimateMarvel wrote:And after all the hate he's been giving Wonder Woman, your theory is the exact kind of thing he'd do to show a "real" strong female character. lol Fuck it!