James Cameron Defends ‘Terminator: Dark Fate': “We Made A Legit Sequel"

The ‘Terminator’ franchise has been DOA for many fans ever since 2003's “T3: The Rise of the Machines,” which then led to clunkers like “Terminator: Salvation” and “Terminator: Genisys.”

There was some hope that James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton returning for 2019’s “Terminator: Dark Fate” would reignite the franchise, but mediocre reviews and terrible box-office — it lost $120M— turned it into a massive disappointment.

Speaking with Empire, Cameron is now defending ‘Dark Fate’, which he calls “cracking” although he does note that it still doesn’t match the first two movies. Regardless, he places it in third place as far as ‘Terminator’ movies go (“I still think mine are the best, but I put it in solid third.”)

Personally, I think that’s as good as anything that we did back then. […] We achieved our goal. We made a legit sequel to a movie where the people that were actually going to theatres at the time that movie came out are all either dead, retired, crippled, or have dementia. It was a non-starter. There was nothing in the movie for a new audience […] Our problem was not that the film didn’t work. The problem was, people didn’t show up. I’ve owned this to [director] Tim Miller many times. I said, ‘I torpedoed that movie before we ever wrote a word or shot a foot of film.

Tim Miller was hired by Cameron to direct ‘Dark Fate’ and the goal was to “pretend the other films were a bad dream” by making it a sequel to 1991’s “T2: Judgement Day.”

Cameron infamously had creative differences with Miller during production and post-production on the film, calling his clashes with Miller in the editing room a “bloodbath” with “many disagreements.” He went on to add that “the blood is still being scrubbed off the walls from those creative battles”.

Cameron told CinemaBlend he had seen Miller’s rough cut and “it was pretty rough; it was pretty long.” The movie transformed in the editing room as Cameron worked with Miller and producer David Ellison “to find the best film that could emerge from” the rough cut.

I felt there were a lot of pathways that were taken that were unnecessary. I’m an editor myself, so I gave notes that were both broad, and very specific. I continued in that process up to about two and a half months ago when we locked picture […] I was very involved in the writing and I was very involved in the cutting of the film. And to me, the cutting is really an extension of the writing.

Do you agree with Cameron? Where does ‘Dark Fate’ rank in your Terminator movie ranking? While the first two films are practically untouchable, I’d actually place ‘Rise of the Machines’ at # 3 instead of ‘Dark Fate.’