With the upcoming TERMINATOR: DARK FATE, audiences will get to see the direct sequel to the sci-fi action classic, TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY, which effectively erases the events of the last three movies from the series’ canon. During a recent interview, original series creator James Cameron (who worked on the story/script and produces here) said that this movie could do more than just set things right for the series, and should everything go well with the reception to this one it could be the start of a new trilogy that takes the story even further.
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Cameron sat down with Deadline recently for a lengthy interview about the process of making the new TERMINATOR, and during the discussion, he mentioned how all the work in the writer's room led to the creation of a three-movie arc that would act as a big pitch to bring Linda Hamilton back to the series.
“We spent several weeks breaking story and figuring out what type of story we wanted to tell so we would have something to pitch Linda. We rolled up our sleeves and started to break out the story and when we got a handle on something we looked at it as a three-film arc, so there is a greater story there to be told. If we get fortunate enough to make some money with Dark Fate we know exactly where we can go with the subsequent films.”
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This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone following the business of this series over the years. After TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES the series went through another shift with SALVATION, which starred series newcomers, Christian Bale and Sam Worthington. The movie did fine at the box office, but the critical lashing it got halted the series for years. Then came the opus that was TERMINATOR GENISYS in 2015, which was also meant to kick start a new series before so-so box office and dismal reviews caused everyone at Skydance and Paramount to reconsider the future of the franchise.
Now, here we are, with Cameron back in the fold and a new movie that dismisses everything that came between it and 1991’s T2. According to Cameron, the key to getting things back on track is getting back to the core mechanics of what worked about the first two movies, which means ditching complicated plot devices and keeping things fast-paced.
“One of the things that seemed obvious from looking at the films that came along later was that we would need to get everything back to the basics and that we would need to avoid the mistakes of making things overly complex and that we needed to avoid stories that jumps around in time and one that goes backward and forward in time. Let’s keep it simple in the relative unity of time. With the story, let’s have the whole thing play out in 36 hours or 48 hours. In the first two movies everything plays out in less than two days in each one so there’s energy and momentum.”
This whole process is reminiscent of what's going on with the HALLOWEEN franchise. After last year's megahit new movie that acted as a direct follow-up to the first movie (ignoring everything that came after), we are now slated for two more movies that will bring the story of Laure Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) to an end. Such a path could be taken here should everything go well, which means we can look forward to two more movies…unless DARK FATE again proves the series needs to be left alone for the foreseeable future.
TERMINATOR: DARK FATE is in theaters November 1.