Alan Taylor has officially claimed the iron throne. The “Game of Thrones” director, whose big-budget Marvel project “Thor: The Dark World” opens this fall (the footage we saw at D23 was officially “quite good”), has been named the director of the next “Terminator” film from Annapurna Pictures and Paramount. The next entry in the time traveling cyborgs franchise is scheduled to be released in the summer of 2015, along with every other huge movie ever.
Taylor is one of those directors who has seen it all: after directing small scale character dramas like “Palookaville” and the Ian Holm-as-Napoleon movie “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” he transitioned to television, where he got a steady gig directing for prestigious pay cable channel HBO, helming episodes of “Sex and the City,” “The Sopranos,” “Six Feet Under,” “Carnivale,” “Deadwood,” “Rome,” “Big Love,” “Boardwalk Empire” and, most memorably, the first two seasons of “Game of Thrones,” where Taylor helped establish the fantasy series’ gritty visual underpinnings through stark visuals and clean compositions. “Thor: The Dark World” is Taylor’s first feature since 2003’s little-seen “Kill the Poor.”
The new “Terminator” feature, which doesn’t have a name or even a subtitle yet, is being written by James Cameron protégé Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier, a longtime creative partner of Wes Craven. Details of the film’s storyline are being kept tightly under wraps (it’s supposed to be the first film in a new trilogy), but it’s assumed that Arnold Schwarzenegger will return in some capacity in the role that helped make him an international superstar.
According to the report in Variety, Ang Lee was the production’s first choice, which is in keeping with Annapurna honcho Megan Ellison‘s commitment to auteur-driven product, even when it’s a “Terminator” reboot, but a deal with Lee could never be reached. They then reached out to “Prisoners” director Denis Vileneuve and “Looper” filmmaker Rian Johnson, but the assignment ultimately fell to Taylor, who impressed the production with his take on the project and his work on “Thor: The Dark World.”
“Thor: The Dark World” opens on November 8th and “Terminator” is due on June 26th, 2015.