It’s really hard to separate Arnold Schwarzenegger from the “Terminator” franchise, but James Cameron has revealed that the former California governor won’t be showing up in his next installment (seemingly still only in the story/idea stage) as he hopes to instead pursue a new string of characters for the next generation in “Terminator 7.”
Cameron mentioned this interesting franchise update during his in-depth chat with The Hollywood Reporter in a recent profile of the Canadian-American filmmaker with “Avatar: Fire & Ash” heading to theaters this week: “I can safely say he won’t be [in it]. It’s time for a new generation of characters. I insisted Arnold had to be involved in [2019’s] ‘Terminator: Dark Fate,’ and it was a great finish to him playing the T-800. There needs to be a broader interpretation of Terminator and the idea of a time war and super intelligence. I want to do new stuff that people aren’t imagining.”
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Previously, Cameron had expressed frustration with coming up with ideas for the untitled installment, with the threat of A.I. being a real-life topic complicating things. However, the filmmaker revealed that “Once the dust clears on ‘Avatar’ in a couple of months, I’m going to really plunge into that…There are a lot of narrative problems to solve. The biggest is how do I stay enough ahead of what’s really happening to make it science fiction?” When pressed by THR whether Cameron has cracked the premise, he replied with a sly smile, “I’m working on it.”
Tim Miller‘s “Terminator: Dark Fate” was the first time since 1991 that Cameron got involved (took on producing and co-writing duties, also micromanging Miller throught the film’s development, casting, production, and post process) with a feature film in any major way (he had previously worked on the 3D ride at Universal Studios) and there were negative to mixed reactions to the film as it attempted to retcon the ending of “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” with the murder of a young John Connor (a deleted scene from “T2” showed a peaceful future, where John grew up to become a politican instead of a “great military leader”) to allow for a new human messiah figure that helps them defeat Skynet and machines.
“Dark Fate” introduced us to Natalia Reyes‘ Dani Ramos, a young Mexican woman, who is expected to take over the John Connor mantle in the future as humanity’s savior in a new timeline created by the events after Connor’s death. It remains to be seen if Cameron will be bringing back any of those characters (Mackenzie Davis‘ newly introduced human/cyborg hybrid heroic figure, Grace Harper) after extreme backlash from folks upset that women and folks of Mexican ethnicity would be main characters in the soft-reboot, despite that directly linking to characters, locations, and events established in the original two movies lining up perfectly well with Cameron’s universe.
This week marks the arrival of “Avatar: Fire & Ash” in theaters, and you can read The Playlist’s review of the event sci-fi blockbuster right here.
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