Orion Pictures
While James Cameron may be busy trying to pioneer the future of cinema with his Avatar franchise, the acclaimed director is also apparently making time for some past (and future?) projects, too.
During a recent interview, the 68-year-old Candian filmmaker teased that the’s considering returning to the beloved Terminator franchise. Cameron, of course, became a household name following The Terminator and reinvented the action genre with T2: Judgement Day.
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Speaking to hosts Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes on their SmartLess podcast, Cameron indicated that there have been “discussions” about rebooting the Terminator franchise. If he did go down that road, however, he’d want to tell a bit of a different story.
“Well, the Avatar films are about the environment; I’m not dealing with AI. 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.”
While Cameron hasn’t been involved with any of the Terminator movies since the legendary sequel, he did serve as a “producer” on 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate. Realistically, though, given the fact that Cameron was likely in the throes of making The Way of Water at the time, his role as producer was likely nothing more than cursory.
Since T2: Judgement Day, there have been four films in the Terminator franchise, none of which have hit the heights of the original two: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Terminator Salvation (2009), Terminator Genisys (2015), and Terminator: Dark Fate (2019).
Cameron’s latest film, of course, is Avatar: The Way of Water, which is currently playing in theaters. The film, which made about $135 million at the domestic box office in its opening weekend, stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, Sigourney Weaver, Edie Falco, Kate Winslet, Jemaine Clement, Michelle Yeoh, Brendan Cowell, Cliff Curtis, Oona Chaplin, CJ Jones, and more.