As previously announced, the new anime series, Terminator Zero, is coming to Netflix on “Judgement Day”, August 29th, 2024. The anime hails from Japanese animation studio Production IG (Ghost in the Shell). The eight-episode series will be part of the Terminator universe but will center around new characters. It will be the first-ever iteration of the franchise to be animated.
While it was revealed earlier that Timothy Olyphant will be voicing the Terminator, Netflix has just announced additional casting news:
Rosario Dawson (Ahsoka, Common Ground) will be playing Kokoro – An advanced AI and Japan’s answer to Skynet, if brought online, Kokoro will be endowed with the same power as Skynet. Kokoro must calculate for itself: is humanity the plague Skynet believes? Or are human beings worth saving?
André Holland (Moonlight, The Knick) will voice Malcolm Lee – A genius computer programmer and father of three, Malcolm Lee is haunted by prophetic nightmares of an apocalyptic future. He’s spent the last decade creating a secret artificial intelligence that he believes will be humanity’s last hope.
Sonoya Mizuno (House of the Dragon, Crazy Rich Asians) plays Eiko – Coming from a post-Judgement Day 2022, Eiko is a resistance fighter sent back in time to stop Malcolm from launching Kokoro.
Ann Dowd (The Handmaid’s Tale, MASS) is set to voice The Prophet – In the future, the Prophet is the philosophical guide for the human resistance, a light shepherding survivors in the darkness of the unknown future ahead.
Terminator Zero is set in the established Terminator universe but centers on new characters. Mattson Tomlin, who worked on the screenplays for The Batman and its upcoming sequel, is writer and showrunner on this series, which has the following synopsis: 2022: A future war has raged for decades between the few human survivors and an endless army of machines. 1997: The AI known as Skynet gained self-awareness and began its war against humanity.
Caught between the future and this past is a soldier sent back in time to change the fate of humanity. She arrives in 1997 to protect a scientist named Malcolm Lee who works to launch a new AI system designed to compete with Skynet’s impending attack on humanity. As Malcolm navigates the moral complexities of his creation, he is hunted by an unrelenting assassin from the future which forever alters the fate of his three children.
Terminator Zero is directed by Masashi Kudō, who is best known for working on the anime series Bleach. Tomlin serves as executive producer alongside David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, and Don Granger of Skydance.