Speaking to THR, while promoting his upcoming NatGeo documentary, “OceanXplorers,” James Cameron was asked about the ‘Terminator’ franchise.
Cameron casually dropped news that he was working on his own “‘Terminator’ stuff.” Unfortunately, the filmmaker remains tight-lipped and isn’t spilling the beans on what it is. “It’s totally classified,” teased Cameron. “I don’t want to have to send out a potentially dangerous robotic agent if you were to talk about it, even retroactively.”
Media outlets reporting on Cameron’s comments are making it look like the news came out of nowhere, but have they forgotten that Cameron had already hinted, twice, about a ‘Terminator’ movie that, at the time, he was planning to write and direct?
If you remember, back in 2022, Cameron had mentioned that he was in “discussions” to direct the next ‘Terminator’ movie, he added …
If I were to do another ‘Terminator’ film and maybe try and to launch that franchise again, which is in discussion, but nothing has been decided, I would make it much more about the AI side of it than bad robots gone crazy.
A year later, Cameron confirmed that he was in the middle of writing the movie and that he wanted to see how A.I. developed before he went any further with it.
I don’t know if any of these plans have changed, but it sure sounds like Cameron is still heavily involved. Is he still directing it? That seems to be the million-dollar question. The fact remains that Cameron has three more ‘Avatar’ films left to direct before he can set aside time for another franchise.
Cameron hasn’t directed a ‘Terminator’ movie since “Terminator: Judgement Day,” although he had major creative involvement in “Terminator; Dark Fate,” which Tim Miller helmed. The film received bad reviews and reportedly lost $120 million.
Cameron has spoken about his regrets in casting Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger in ‘Dark Fate.’ He also, infamously, had creative differences with Miller during production and post-production on the film. The only way to inject some much-needed energy into this tired old franchise is if Cameron comes back in the director’s chair, and it sure looks like that might be a possibility.
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