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

Mackenzie Davis Joining New ‘Terminator’

Mackenzie Davis is in negotiations to join the cast of the new “Terminator” movie.

Tim Miller is directing, with James Cameron and Skydance’s David Ellison producing. Skydance is also financing the pic.

Billy Ray has signed on to polish the script that is based on a story conceived by Cameron, Miller, and Ellison.

Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger are returning to the franchise. Plot details are being kept under wraps, although Cameron has said that the film will be a direct sequel to “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” since he played no part in the recent installments.

According to insiders, Davis would be one of the new faces of rebooted franchise, in the vein of Schwarzenegger’s robotic assassin. Miller and Cameron are still looking for the protagonist who would take over for Hamilton’s character. Sources say Davis has been the studio and Miller’s top choice for a while, but the casting needed sign off from Cameron, who is currently filming the “Avatar” sequels.

The pic is set to bow on July 26, 2019.

Best known for her role as computer hacker Cameron Howe on AMC’s “Halt and Catch Fire” and Yorkie in “Black Mirror’s” Golden Globe-winning “San Junipero” episode, Davis has also had major roles in the films “That Awkward Moment” and “The Martian.”

Davis most recently appeared in “Blade Runner 2049,” another reboot of a sci-fi classic, and can be seen next opposite Charlize Theron in Jason Reitman’s “Tully” and in the Amblin thriller “The Turning.”

Tyger wrote:Release date and cast, they're halfway done

Although the first image from next year’s Terminator revival reveals nothing new about the plot of the movie, it does suggest that the franchise might have rediscovered its heart after far too many years in the wilderness. How did it manage that? Well, just look at what’s in the image — or, really, what isn’t.

The image, tweeted from the official Terminator account this morning, shows (left to right) Natalia Reyes, Mackenzie Davis and the returning Linda Hamilton looking ready for battle as they approach the viewer, battered and bruised, with flaming and smoking wreckage in the background. It’s been lauded for the first opportunity to see Hamilton’s Sarah Connor since 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, but as welcome as that is, there’s another, less obvious, reason to get excited about the movie because of this image.

There are no men in the photo.

Under the control of franchise creator James Cameron, Terminator was always a story about a woman. There were obviously men in the movies — Sarah’s son, John, is the Macguffin that gets the story going, after all, and there are both sidekicks (Hi, Kyle Reece! Hi, Old-School Terminator in T2!) and male threats — but at the center of it all, unmistakably, is Sarah Connor. She was the engine of resistance and change for the entire narrative and, for both of Cameron’s movies, the only character that really provided any emotional hook for the audience.

Compare this with the subsequent movies in the series, all of which have been to a greater or lesser degree shunned by audiences and Terminator fans alike: The main character of 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is an adult John Connor; the main character of 2009’s Terminator Salvation is, again, John, with newcomer Marcus Wright sharing the spotlight. For Terminator Genisys, although Emilia Clarke’s Sarah was present, Kyle Reese was arguably the protagonist this time around, with Sarah pushed into the background as a result.

Indeed, since Cameron left the series in the ‘90s, arguably the most successful — critically, and also with the franchise’s core fanbase — entry wasn’t a movie at all; it was the television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which not only centered around Sarah (as the name suggests), but also included a female Terminator replacing Schwarzenegger, and in its second season, introduced Catherine Weaver, a disguised Terminator that serves as that year’s Big Bad.

The lesson seems obvious — but it’s one that only appears to have been learned with the release of this new promotional image. When it comes to Terminator, arguably more than any other science-fiction franchise, the future is female, and always has been. The visual that audiences needed to see to have faith in any new installment isn’t of the eponymous robot threat, any number of grimacing male action heroes brandishing weapons while sweating, or a callback to earlier promo posters; none of that is what makes the series special. What is, is meeting the women who are going to fight back and save tomorrow.

Good work so far, Terminator. Now we’re just waiting for the first teaser trailer for the follow-through.

Tim Miller's Terminator opens Nov. 22, 2019.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Sarah still looks badass, only older.

But this article is full of SHEEEEEEIIIIIIITTTT!!! If John isn't in this movie, I will not watch it. Sarah is awesome but she's not the center of the story. We need to see John be the leader that he is. With all the Terminator movies and shows combined, we know more about Sarah than we do about John. It's time to shift it to John now, not focus on the same character.

WyldeMan wrote:I fully agree that Sarah is the lead human character of this franchise and you would to if you'd ever seen Terminator and in T2, John Connor was purely an obnoxious asshole.

WyldeMan wrote:I know all I need to about John, his mom was awesome and he took way too damned long to save the world and in every situation, he failed the box office.

WyldeMan wrote:Kyle Reese was a stud, too bad his kid sucked.

UltimateMarvel wrote:LOL! That's just bad story telling. 1 and 2 were great, this is a continuation so lets see where this leads. If it's going to be all "woman power" then the ladies can go watch this in theaters.

UltimateMarvel wrote:

WyldeMan wrote:Kyle Reese was a stud, too bad his kid sucked.

Jai Courtney or Michael Biehn Kyle Reese?

UltimateMarvel wrote:Damn! You go Gabriel Luna. In this shape, maybe he should have his own show for Ghost Rider.

‘Terminator 6 Official Title ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’

Terminator 6 now has a real title, and it’s one we’ve heard before: Terminator: Dark Fate. Producer James Cameron mentioned this as the working title last month, and it has now been confirmed as official. As far as titles go, it’s not great. Especially since it’s very close to an actual quote from the franchise, which asks the question: why not use that instead?

The Wrap has confirmed the Terminator: Dark Fate title, and I can’t say I’m a fan. In Terminator 2: Judgement Day, a tormented Sarah Connor carves the phrase NO FATE onto a wooden table before going off to try to kill Miles Dyson, one of the creators of Skynet. Sarah’s son John says the phrase comes from something Sarah said in the past – “There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.” This was actually a quote from the first Terminator, but it ended up on the cutting room floor. With all that in mind, why not call this new film Terminator: No Fate? That’s not a great title either, but it at least ties into the franchise as a whole.

But maybe Dark Fate will make more sense once we see the movie. We still don’t know a whole lot about the new film. All we can say for sure is that it’s going to ignore everything after Terminator 2, which is a good idea. Deadpool‘s Tim Miller is directing, and original Terminator creator James Cameron helped come up with the story, with David S. Goyer writing the script.

“This is a continuation of the story from Terminator 1 and Terminator 2. And we’re pretending the other films were a bad dream,” Cameron previously said. “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.”

The Terminator franchise has run out of fuel at this point, but maybe Cameron coming back to help will inject new life into everything, bad title notwithstanding. And hey, at least Dark Fate is a better title than Terminator Genisys.

Franchise legends Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton are both returning, and will be co-starring alongside Mackenzie Davis, Gabriel Luna, Natalia Reyes, and Diego Boneta. Terminator: Dark Fate opens November 1, 2019.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Nice poster, I think Sarah will die at the end of the movie. The title makes sense now.

WyldeMan wrote:In the OG Terminator Sarah says "There's no fate but what we make for ourselves" and she carved "No Fate" into a wood table right before she went to kill Miles Dyson. Then in T2 John Connor says to the T-8Ahnold "The whole thing goes: The future's not set. There's no fate but what we make for ourselves." Fate has always been a running theme through all the Terminator films.

I hope Sarah doesn't die, they already killed her with cancer in T3.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Interesting, it's been a while since I've seen the movie. Still ironic that with Judgement Day and Skynet happening regardless and John being the leader, it seems the future is indeed set based on all the movies we've seen.

UltimateMarvel wrote:I don't watch the show so I don't get it.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Good trailer. Gabriel is gonna be awesome in this. Looks like Mackenzie is gonna play a somewhat similar character that Sam Worthington did, machine that is kinda human. Where is John?

WyldeMan wrote:Probably off sulking in a corner somewhere or collaborating with the machines.

Tyger wrote:They probably wanted to recast John Connor so many times that they just wrote him out altogether

The actor will be back as the character for the first time in 27 years.

They're back. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton got a hero's welcome in Hall H for the first major panel of this year's San Diego Comic-Con.

Series creator and Terminator: Dark Fate producer James Cameron kicked off the event via live video chat from the New Zealand set of his upcoming Avatar sequels. He came with the news that actor Edward Furlong, who played John Connor in 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day, would be back as the character for the first time in 27 years. The actor had largely fallen out of Hollywood after dealing with addiction issues, and so far he has not appeared in marketing materials, including the footage screened for the packed Hall H presentation.

Dark Fate, which director Tim Miller confirmed will be rated-R, also sees Linda Hamilton return for the first time since 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and is billed as a direct followup to that film, ignoring the three Terminator movies that have hit since. Cameron noted that he wrote Hamilton a long email, "rambling" detailing both pros and cons for why she should join the project.

"I think the key point in the pro column was people love you in this character," said Cameron. "It was so iconic and I think the fans just want to know what's she like now? What's her life been like in the meantime?"

Cameron produces with Deadpool filmmaker Tim Miller directing a cast that also includes Natalia Reyes, Mackenzie Davis, Gabriel Luna and Diego Boneta.

The panel showed off an extended scene with a Terminator (Luna) hunting down a young woman named Dani (Reyes) under the protection of an enhanced human from the future named Grace (Davis). Sarah Connor saves the day at the last minute, coming in with guns blazing.

They don't know who she is, and later in a safe house she explains her backstory in a bit of dialogue that reveals this is not the first Terminator Connor has fought since her T2 days.

"My name is Sarah Connor. Aug. 29, 1997 was supposed to be judgment day. My son and I stopped that. We changed the future. Saved 3 billion lives. You're welcome," she says. "Since then, I hunt Terminators. Enough of a resume for you?"

Other revelations from the footage, which has not been made available online, include that Schwarzenegger's T-800 goes by the name Carl. He appears to be fitting into human society, living in a cabin and even owning a dog. Sarah Connor is ever suspicious of him, saying, "I'm never going to fucking call you Carl," and later telling him, "When this is all over, I'm going to kill you."

Though Terminator: Salvation (2009) and Terminator: Genisys (2015) were rated PG-13, Miller said the Dark Fate will be R-rated, because the fans demanded it. But there were discussions about it being PG-13.

"I had a whole other plan in case it didn’t go R. The thing is the DNA of Terminator is an R-rated fucking movie," said Miller, who added part of that plan just included shooting lots of takes of Hamilton saying the F-word.

Miller teased that the crux of the film deals with the consequences of Sarah Connor's T2 choice to try to destroy CyberDyne and thus prevent judgment day.

"In the Terminator universe, there is only one timeline. If you change something in the past, the time wave moves forward and changes the future," Miller noted.

Hamilton spoke about training hard for to get back into the action franchise shape.

"I worked really hard for a good year, diet and all of that to sort of get trim and get as far into the character as I could physically," said Hamilton. "But one day I woke up and I go you know what, I can no longer worry about trying to be what I was, because I am so much more than I was."

1984's The Terminator launched the career of Cameron, who would go on to become one of the biggest filmmakers in the world with films such as Titanic and Avatar. In addition to Judgment Day, films that followed included non-Cameron movies such as Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Terminator: Salvation (2009) and Terminator: Genisys (2015). A TV series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, ran from 2008-09.

A running joke at the panel — which featured plenty of F-bombs, was that Miller would say the word at least five times. Schwarzenegger collected $20 from co-star Luna, who lost his bet that Miller would keep it to under five.

"Tim loves talking about it. I love doing it," Schwarzenegger said, who added a joke about keeping that $20 considering how well the economy is doing under President Donald Trump.

Terminator: Dark Fate opens Nov. 1 from Paramount and Skydance.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Holy shit! That's him?!!! WHY? Never seen him in anything so I don't think he's been acting since T2. lol

The Terminator reunion didn’t feel complete until producer James Cameron confirmed the return of Edward Furlong as John Connor in the Tim Miller-directed Terminator: Dark Fate, which retcons all sequels except Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

The third film in the trilogy brings Linda Hamilton back as Sarah Connor, so it would be strange to see a continuation of the story without her son, John, who in the key component to everything.

In Cameron’s 1984 The Terminator, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) is sent back in time (by John) to protect his mother from the original T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a machine programmed to kill her before she can give birth to the future leader of the resistance.

Sarah and a teenage John team up in the sequel, Judgment Day, and eventually stop all the future events from coming to fruition. Thus, we never actually see John strap on his boots and go to war with the machines.

This led to a lot of speculation as to what John’s role would be in Dark Fate, arriving in theaters this November. Would we see him as the leader of the same resistance, started in a different future, or maybe we’d see him sending Reese back in some sort of futuristic flashback sequence? The answer is neither.

*SPOILERS*

I have confirmed that early leaked reports were on target and that we won’t be seeing an adult version of Furlong’s John Connor in Dark Fate, at least not in the most recent cut of the film.

My source tells me that yes, Jude Collie was in fact cast to play a young John Connor and that CGI was used to put Furlong’s face on his body. Now, here’s where this becomes news and not a rehash of what you’ve read here on Bloody Disgusting for over the past year – while Furlong isn’t physically in Dark Fate, he does deliver a brand new performance that’s been digitally placed directly onto Collie’s face. So, yes, Furlong is technically in Dark Fate, just not exactly how we all expected.

It’s also important to note that Miller and the cast are preparing for a round of additional photography that could change the current edit as it exists. It’s still possible that they shoot some new sequences that involve an older John Connor, but as of this writing, we’ll be seeing him in CG form.

As a side note, I’m told this new film bleeds James Cameron and is a worthy sequel to Judgment Day. Also, in case you were wondering, Biehn nor Reese are in this film.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Wow! Sounds like they are going to fuck John Connor over again. At least it won't be worse than Genesis. lol

UltimateMarvel wrote:Watched. Only thing I'm looking forward to seeing is Gabriel Luna.

That score is still amazing though!

WyldeMan wrote:

UltimateMarvel wrote:Wow! Sounds like they are going to fuck John Connor over again. At least it won't be worse than Genesis. lol

I don't care about JC, this franchise has always belonged to his bad ass mother.  


Watch these clips, remember that we're getting an R-Rated Cameron esque Terminator and tell me you still need John.

Tyger wrote:For way too long I was like “James Cameron’s mother, WTF??”

I’ve actually softened on this and may see it in theaters which would be my first time seeing a Terminator movie in its initial run

It’s not a good weekend for franchises, specifically old dusty ones as the sixth Terminator movie, Terminator: Dark Fate is seeing an awful future at the weekend domestic box office with $27.1M, a terrible result for a planned Paramount/Skydance Media/Fox tentpole that reportedly cost $185M (some even say it was $196M). And I hear worldwide, global audiences are turning their noses ups: China’s box office, now at an estimated $19.4M is also underwhelming, expected to come in at $30M, well below the $40M-$50M many were expecting, with Disney/Fox hoping that they hit $40M from 36 territories. Japan is the only market left (Terminator: Genisys made $22M). Breakeven for Dark Fate lies around $470M+ according to finance sources, and that’s with lofty Cameron-Arnold Schwarzenegger participations in the 8%-9% range. Terminator likes his eyes, will likely see red.

While there has been scuttlebutt about an over-budget production, a set that went dark for a few days, script problems (it was punched out by a writers room that included Josh Friedman, Justin Rhodes and David S. Goyer) with creative battles between Tim Miller and producer James Cameron during editing with the latter recently revealing to CinemaBlend at a recent roundtable junket that he had many battles with the Deadpool director, that “the blood is still being scrubbed off the walls from those creative battles. This is a film that was forged in fire. So yeah, but that’s the creative process, right? I mean, my work with Robert on Alita was very different. Robert loved the script, loved everything, said, ‘I just want to make this movie. I want to make the movie the way you see it.’ I was like, ‘No, you got to make it your movie.’ I had the reverse experience with Tim, which is Tim wanted to make it his movie. And I’m like, ‘Yeah, but I kind of know a little about this world.’ So I had the matter and the anti-matter version of that producorial experience”. Despite all of this, we’ve seen great blockbusters birthed from on-set creative chaos, i.e. Star Wars: Rogue One ($1.06B) and Venom ($856M).

However, there are a few things sources inform me that terminated Dark Fate, despite all the good intentions here to revive the sixth film with the re-teaming of Linda Hamilton and Schwarzenegger and bringing Cameron back into the fold as a story by guy and producer, even though his Lightstorm wasn’t a producer on the project like Alita: Battle Angel.

Paramount did a great job at mounting excitement for this film out of Comic-Con and Cinemacon, enough to put initial projections in the $40M range. In fact a recent hysterical ESPN hybrid trailer with NBA star (and new to LA) Kawhi Leonard, Schwarzenegger and Hamilton racked up 10M global views, I hear. However, Dark Fate was crushed by early breaking reviews which spoiled that a key character in the franchise meets their death, thus sending the mythology of the film franchise and its fans into tailspin. Male trolls erupted, concerned that their prized Arnie series would now be relegated to three female leads.

Says Hollywood social media org RelishMix about the online chatter, “Fans and action sci-fi moviegoers who have seen the film are up in arms about major changes to the film series’ plot lines. It’s also worth observing that fans and moviegoers are all for strong female characters – when these characters are essential and interesting to the story. Like other recent remakes, spin-offs and reimaginings, casual moviegoers are confused and disinterested in taking a classic film and simply re-shooting it with women in the lead roles, which is the perception of some related to Dark Fate, and the reality to still others who have seen early screenings.”

This, coupled with lackluster UK and France openings, took all the air out of the pic’s stateside (and what we’re hearing worldwide) projections. The post Terminator 2: Judgement Day sequels had bastardized the timeline enough, and Dark Fate wasn’t a fresh, exhilarating reboot, but more retread from earlier pics, but with largely new characters. Also, with Judgement Day raising the bar with its visual effects, Dark Fate has the same morphing body pony show. While critics enjoyed the return of Hamilton giving the pic’s Rotten Tomatoes score a 69% fresh (which, sorry, isn’t that strong), stateside audiences have flat out thumbed down Dark Fate with 3 1/2 stars on PostTrak, a 78% percenticle and lackluster B+.

Still, for some film finance sources, a $40M start over 3-days was never going to be good enough for a pic this size, plus despite Dark Fate being ‘a bad’ movie, we’ve seen bad movies like Venom work at the box office before. “Everybody wanted to see that movie, nobody wanted to see Terminator: Dark Fate. The studios never took into consideration who their target audience was. Seriously, who wanted to see this old franchise?” opines one finance executive. While the over 25 crowd came out at 72%, Dark Fate failed to excite the 18-24 set with a 25% draw and 73% grade. Furthermore, Dark Fate comes too soon on the heels of the last domestic-failed Terminator: Genisys which stalled stateside with $89.8M. There was a play here with Dark Fate to expand the pic to Hispanic audiences who turned out at 22% in U.S./Canada, however, note sci-fi action isn’t the type of genre that overindexes in Latin American markets; it’s family pics and horror. Sci-Fi action features typically fare better in Asian markets, hence further misconception by those developing the movie.

Also, as we pointed out with Alita (some debate that movie broke even while other finance sources contend lost $53M off a $404.8M global B.O. and $170M production pricetag), just because a movie is produced by Cameron means absolutely nothing. Everyone in town wants it to mean more, but to moviegoers, it doesn’t bring them to theater. If you’re going to work with Cameron, have him fully committed as the director, writer and producer on the film. While he provided story notes, stepped in with editing, word is he didn’t step on set during production or meet the cast. If you can’t get Cameron, then entrust the entire franchise to one visionary auteur, script and helming, and not just any one director, but someone who is truly going to break it and rebuild it, a la Ryan Coogler or James Gunn kind of way, and rise the Terminator series from its tormented ashes. Dark Fate played best in the West, South-West along with Canada but even these numbers were clearly disappointing.