Terminator’s Mackenzie Davis says alternate timeline was coming in next film

Last Updated on November 21, 2023

The problem when a high-profile film of a planned franchise bombs at the box office is that we don’t get to see where the story could’ve gone. This is very much the case for Terminator: Dark Fate, a film meant to reinvigorate the Terminator franchise that crashed and burned financially, despite decent reviews and a fan response that declared it was the best Terminator film since the second entry. Unfortunately for Dark Fate, the film couldn’t break out beyond the hardcore fan base. But one of the stars of the new Terminator, Mackenzie Davis, is revealing where the next film would’ve gone had the latest endeavor been successful.

Mackenzie Davis played Grace, a cybernetically-enhanced human sent from the future to protect Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes) from a new Terminator threat. Davis’ Grace did fulfill her mission but (SPOILER ALERT AHEAD…YOU’VE BEEN WARNED) her character was killed at the end of the film. While being a guest on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast to promote her new film The Happiest Season, the actress revealed she would’ve returned in the next entry via an alternate timeline:

“It was gonna be a sort of timeline thing, where there’d be another timeline that you’d explore. Like, there’s no resurrection, but she came from the future, so…”

In Terminator: Dark Fate, an augmented human (Davis) and Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) must stop an advanced liquid Terminator (Gabriel Luna) from hunting down a young girl (Reyes), whose fate is critical to the human race. The film featured the return of Linda Hamilton the franchise as Sarah Connor and reunited her with Arnold Schwarzenegger who was back on board playing another T-800. Dark Fate received decent reviews, scoring a 70% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, thus making it the best-reviewed Terminator film since T2, but the film was a major financial bomb. Made for a staggering $185 million, the movie only mustered $62.2 million at the domestic box office. Its $261.1 million global take wasn’t enough to justify another film and just like that the Terminator franchise has gone dormant once again with no signs of another theatrical return. It’s really a shame too because Dark Fate was solid, in my opinion, and was leaps and bounds better than any of the sequels after the definitive second film.

Would YOU have liked to see the Terminator franchise continue with its planned alternate timeline?