The Terminator franchise will return after some “re-adjusting”

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Unfortunately that feeling we had in our gut leading up to the release of TERMINATOR: GENISYS turned out to be correct; while the end result wasn't without its fans, the critical and commercial thrashing that the film received seemed to put a nail in the Terminator's coffin. Instead of being the launch of a brand-new Terminator franchise, TERMINATOR: GENISYS instead led the entire franchise to be "put on hold indefinitely." D'oh.

However, Skydance Media Chief Creative Officer Dana Goldberg recently discussed the future of Terminator at TheWrap’s 6th Annual Media Leadership Conference; she admitted that TERMINATOR: GENISYS's domestic box-office was less than ideal (the film grossed almost $90 million in the U.S.) but denied that the franchise was being put on hold saying, "I wouldn’t say on hold, so much as re-adjusting." However TERMINATOR: GENISYS performed much better in the rest of the world, taking in $350 million, which has kept Terminator's lifeboat afloat.

Happily, we live in the world where the domestic number [doesn't have the] level of importance [it did] 10 or 15 years ago — I’m not saying it’s not important, it is — but we have to play to a worldwide market, in terms of ‘Terminator,’ the worldwide market paid attention, but we’re not taking the domestic number lightly.

Thankfully Dana Goldberg and Skydance won't just take that overseas box-office as a win, but will instead take a look at what went wrong with TERMINATOR: GENISYS and find out what fans really want in a sequel. Goldberg said that the company will use "data and research to do a worldwide study and really talk to audiences about what they loved, and what maybe didn’t work for them, so that the next step we take with the franchise is the right one.” Good luck with that.