Patrick Lussier on where the Terminator: Genisys sequels would have gone

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Over the decades, the TERMINATOR franchise has continually been chasing the high of the first two films in the series, but try as they might, they just haven't managed to recapture that lightning in a bottle. There have been three attempts at relaunching the franchise, with TERMINATOR: SALVATION, TERMINATOR: GENISYS, and TERMINATOR: DARK FATE all intended to kick off a brand-new trilogy, but each of those films have failed to get the ball rolling.

Patrick Lussier, who co-wrote TERMINATOR: GENISYS with Laeta Kalogridis, recently spoke on The Production Meeting Podcast to tease where the GENISYS trilogy would have gone had it been successful.

We wrote like two drafts of the next one, the direct sequel, and had an outline for the third one, what that would be, that answered all the questions that were presented in Genisys and brought it back around and closed it all off,

For some, TERMINATOR: GENISYS was a bit too much of a love letter to the first two movies, but Lussier added that the sequels would have gone a long way toward charting their our path. "They were introducing new characters," Lussier said. "They dealt more with how the future and where Skynet comes from and what that sort of time loop is. You know, the Matt Smith character. It became much more of a focus, so they were probably a little trippier and stood away from T2 a little more. Started having their own identity. There’s sort of an interesting escaping the fatalistic part of it, how it opened was very cool.…who knows? Maybe one day they’ll release it as a comic or something." More than two years ago, Jason Clarke, who played John Connor in the film, also teased that the TERMINATOR: GENISYS sequel would have delved into Connor's transformation into a Terminator. "What I remember was that second one was going to be about John’s journey after he was taken by Skynet," Clarke said, "like going down to what he became; half machine, half man. That’s where the second one was going to start, and that’s about all I knew."

Although last year's TERMINATOR: DARK FATE featured the return of James Cameron, not to mention Linda Hamilton reprising her role of Sarah Connor, the film just couldn't reignite the franchise, and plans for sequels to DARK FATE were shelved. After the failure of three back-to-back franchise reboots, I'd imagine it might be some time before studios will dip their toes back into the series.