Editorial Staff
Earlier this year pants dampened with the news “Terminator” godfather James Cameron has been “pulled back in”, ready to return to the franchise he kicked off back when Rubiks Cube ruled the world.
After the failure of the rather stinky “Terminator : Genisys”, Cameron stepped forward with an idea to reinvent, resurrect and return the series to its glory days. By all accounts, the new movie would dismiss everything that came after the events of his own “Terminator 2 : Judgement Day” and yet still, somewhat inexplicably, retain the services of original cyborg Arnold Schwarzenegger (even just to pass the torch).
The catch? Cameron wouldn’t direct the film, merely oversee it, with “Deadpool” director Tim Miller yanking the reigns.
In a new interview with News.com.au, the “Avatar” director explained how the idea to return to “Terminator” came about and how that return might span three films.
“The question is — has the franchise run its course or can it be freshened up?,” says Cameron, out promoting the 3D release of his “Terminator 2”. “Can it still have relevance now where so much of our world is catching up to what was science fiction in the first two films. We live in a world of predator drones and surveillance and big data and emergent AI (artificial intelligence).
“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.”
“We’ll put more meat on the bones if we get past the next couple of hurdles as and when we announce that.”
Interestingly, Cameron says he didn’t think much of the “Terminator” sequels – that he didn’t direct – but was merely doing a favour for Schwarzenegger when he offered positive praise in the direction of a couple of them – mainly last year’s “Terminator : Genisys”.
I think it’s fairly widely known that I don’t have a lot of respect for the films that were made later,” Cameron says. “I was supportive at the time in each case for Arnold’s sake because he is a close friend. He has been a mate of mine since 33 years ago so I was always supportive and never too negative. But they didn’t work for me for various reasons.”
I guess the only question is, how long until all this happens? Cameron likes to take his time, that we know based on how long it’s taken for this “Avatar” sequel to hatch, so is it fair to say by the time the new “Terminator” is ready for release we’ll be watching it via spiffy hologram that shoots out of a robotic sparrow’s pooh shoot? Possibly. Then again, Miller’s directing and he might want to get richer quicker rather than later.
