A sixth Terminator movie is in development from Deadpool director Tim Miller and James Cameron, which will be more of a sequel to Terminator 2: Judgement Day and will be ignoring the three previous movies. Producer David Ellison describes it as “a return to form that I believe fans of the franchise have been wanting since Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger is back as is Linda Hamilton, who is reprising her character last seen in T2 with Sarah Connor, and the hope is the film will lead to a new Terminator trilogy.
“A lot of this is handing off the baton to a new generation of characters. We’re starting a search for an 18-something young woman to essentially be the new centerpiece of these stories. And then a number of other characters around her and characters from the future. We still fold time in the story in intriguing ways. But we have Arnold’s character and Linda’s character to anchor it. Somewhere across there, and I won’t say where, the baton gets passed, so to speak.”
James Cameron previously mentioned that in the new Terminator movie they would be exploring Arnold Schwarzenegger’s origin, questioning why did the Terminators pick his body to copy and mimic. Cameron offers further insights:
The beauty of it is: He’s a cyborg. And so, the org part is on the outside, meaning organism. And Reese says it in the first film: “They sweat. They have bad breath.” Because they were supposed to be infiltration units, so there’s this idea that flesh sort of sheaths over a metal endo-skeleton. So that would age normally. So, obviously he’s one that’s been in action and operation for a long time. And that’s all I want to say about the actual story part of it.
Tim Miller also offers his thoughts on the use of Arnold:
I haven’t talked to Arnold about this so I could get in trouble. But because he’s been in all the other movies — unlike Linda — I do think there needs to be a reason to be different here. I like my sci-fi grounded. I like my characters grounded. And what Jim said about the exterior aging while the interior remains the same — well, not the interior, as in the brain, as emotionally and intellectually he will have evolved. They’re learning machines. But that’s a way to make it different than it was. Even in Genisys, he looked — I should stop — he was a slightly gussied-up version of the old Terminator. I think we should embrace his age. And that’s what’s going to make it interesting and fresh for the fans.
The new Terminator will also be similar to its predecessors as it tackles the idea of machines evolving and surpassing humanity. Cameron weighs in:
Technology has always scared me, and it’s always seduced me. People ask me: “Will the machines ever win against humanity?” I say: “Look around in any airport or restaurant and see how many people are on their phones. The machines have already won.”
Regarding the three previous Terminator movies, James Cameron makes it pretty clear:
This is a continuation of the story from Terminator 1 and Terminator 2. And we’re pretending the other films were a bad dream. Or an alternate timeline, which is permissible in our multi-verse. This was really driven more by [Tim] than anybody, surprisingly, because I came in pretty agnostic about where we took it. The only thing I insisted on was that we somehow revamp it and reinvent it for the 21st century.
The new Terminator movie has a July 26, 2019 release date.
