Despite James Cameron not actively pursuing the rights to THE TERMINATOR franchise when he had the chance, he still seems mildly interested in what direction future films will take. At the very least, to the point he'd be willing to step in and whisper in the year of the producer, which is exactly what happened in the case of TERMINATOR: GENISYS. A straight-up sequel to JUDGMENT DAY didn't quite measure up, and neither did a story taking place in the future war with the machines. Cameron was adamant that Arnold Schwarzenegger should be given a bigger role and his suggestion did exactly that.
How James Cameron contributed to TERMINATOR: GENISYS:
I wasn’t interested in producing it or working on it actively, but I did want to put in a good word for Arnold. I pointed out that the outer covering (of the Terminator) was actually not synthetic, that it was organic and therefore could age. You could theoretically have a Terminator that was sent back in time, missed his target, and ended up just kind of living on in society. Because he is a learning computer and has a brain as a central processor he could actually become more human as he went along without getting discovered.
Regarding his thoughts on the upcoming TERMINATOR flick:
It’s not my problem, that’s the beauty of it. It’s like being a grandparent and the kids come over then you can send them back. I think the chain’s been broken by the films in between. When I walked away from it I had to do it with the sense that I can’t invest in this emotionally anymore. If it’s not good, it doesn’t really bother me personally.
From the sound of it, GENISYS is going all J.J. Abrams' STAR TREK on us with "rebooting" the franchise without rewriting everything that came before it. At this point I'm a little more curious as to how Emilia Clarke and Jai Courtney will portray two characters that were done to perfection by Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn, respectively. The studio must be pretty confident given that two more sequels are on order, but I suppose a teaser trailer isn't too far off given its release in about 9 months.
TERMINATOR: GENISYS will arrive in theaters on July 1, 2015.