James Cameron Says That The Franchise Future Is Uncertain

Following the underperforming box office performance of 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate, which was preceded by 2015’s reboot attempt in Genisys, James Cameron has an idea where the Terminator franchise should go next. While promoting his latest in Avatar: The Way of Water, the director appeared on the Smartless podcast hosted by Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett to talk about where he goes next since securing the rights back and working with director Tim Miller for Dark Fate.

“If I were to do another ‘Terminator’ film and maybe try and to launch that franchise again, which is in the discussion, but nothing has been decided,” Cameron said. “I would make it much more about the AI side of it than bad robots gone crazy.” Dark Fate marked the reunion of original franchise stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton, who last played Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The Miller film picked up following the events of 1991 acting as the new third film and disregards 2003’s Rise of the Machines, 2009’s Salvation, and the 2015 film, which recasts the Hamilton and Michael Biehn roles from the 1984 original film with Emilia Clarke and Jai Courtney. Biehn originally played Kyle Reese, a soldier from the future sent to protect Connor, who’s the mother of John Connor, the key to the human resistance’s victory over the machines.

The 1991 film introduced Edward Furlong as teenage John as he bonds with a repurposed T-800 (Schwarzenegger) who protects him instead of trying to kill him like in the original film. Dark Fate uses CG to de-age both Hamilton and Furlong as we find out another T-800 is successful in killing teenage John. Filled with regret, Sarah acts on tips from a mysterious contact on other locations of terminators to take them out not knowing it was the same machine that killed her son. While Cameron was pleased with how Dark Fate, he conceded there were problems given the mixed reaction from audiences. For more, you can check out The Playlist. Avatar: The Way of Water is in theaters.