Back in January it was announced that James Cameron would be looking to relaunch the Terminator franchise when the rights to the series revert back to him in 2019, with Cameron said to be looking to Deadpool helmer Tim Miller to direct and Arnold Schwarzenegger saying he’ll be back for a sixth outing as the T-800.
Well, speaking to News Australia, Cameron has now officially confirmed that he is planning to bring back the classic sci-fi action series, but he’s not just thinking about one movie – he’s actually planning a brand new trilogy.
“The question is — has the franchise run its course or can it be freshened up?” said Cameron. “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.”
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Cameron also spoke about his disappointment over the three sequels made after his exit from the franchise, stating that he only publicly supported Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator: Salvation and Terminator: Genisys due to his friendship with Arnold, and that he wasn’t really a fan of any of them:
“I think it’s fairly widely known that I don’t have a lot of respect for the films that were made later,” he said. “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.”
Are you excited about the prospect of a new Terminator trilogy? Can the franchise be freshened up? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below…
Originally published July 26, 2017. Updated November 30, 2022.
