If you’ve been paying close attention to the marketing campaign for Terminator Genisys, then you’ll know that Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions have given away a major plot point regarding Jason Clarke’s John Connor, both in the promotional trailers, and the character poster you can see to your left (apologies if you’d managed to avoid spoilers until now).
SEE ALSO: Movie Review – Terminator Genisys (2015)
It certainly seemed baffling that the studio would choose to give away such a major twist, and judging from comments from director Alan Taylor during a promotional interview with Uproxx, it appears he’s a little puzzled by it all too:
“I certainly directed those scenes with the intention that no one would know. One of my favorite moments – and I think Jason Clarke did a great job with it – is when he walks into the hospital in 2017 and everything from there until the turn, you’re supposed to think, ‘Oh man, this is great’… I know there was kind of a challenging calculus going on in the heads of those who market this thing to decide that this was the right thing to do. I think they felt like they had to send a strong message to a very wary audience that there was something new, that this was going to new territory. They were concerned that people were misperceiving this as kind of a reboot, and none of us wanted to reboot two perfect movies by James Cameron. I think they felt they had to do something game-changing in how the film was being perceived.”
Meanwhile, Taylor compared his time on Genisys to that of his previous film Thor: The Dark World, describing his experience on the Marvel sequel as “wrenching”:
“They were very different. I’ve done two and I’ve learned that you don’t make a $170 million movie with someone else’s money and not have to collaborate a lot. The Marvel experience was particularly wrenching because I was sort of given absolute freedom while we were shooting, and then in post it turned into a different movie. So, that is something I hope never to repeat and don’t wish upon anybody else. This was not like that. The story we started telling is essentially the story we finished and are bringing out into the world. But there was a lot of collaboration, as there is going to be on something this big.”
Terminator Genisys is set for release on July 1st in the States and July 2nd in the UK, with Arnold Schwarzenegger leading a cast that also includes Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones), Jason Clarke (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), Jai Courtney (Suicide Squad), Matt Smith (Doctor Who), J.K. Simmons (Whiplash), Courtney B. Vance (Law & Order: Criminal Intent), Byung-hun Lee (G.I. Joe: Retaliation), Dayo Okeniyi (The Hunger Games), Michael Gladis (Mad Men), Sandrine Holt (House of Cards) and Douglas Smith (Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters).
https://youtu.be/IkCIASOuyCw?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published June 30, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
