The first two Terminator films are considered the gold standard of blockbuster cinema, but every movie that’s come out since has been considered a critical dud. The franchise had tried to reboot itself over three times with movies like Terminator: Salvation, Genisys, and Dark Fate, but they just failed to take off.
With James Cameron being attached as producer for Dark Fate, he admits that they ‘miscalculated’ and that it was kind of his fault for leaning too heavily on returning actors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton.
Talking to Empire Online, Cameron says, “Our problem was not that the film didn’t work… The problem was, people didn’t show up. I’ve owned this to Tim Miller many times. I said, ‘I torpedoed that movie before we ever wrote a word or shot a foot of film.’”
Cameron says that he was ‘getting high on my own supply’ when they wanted to make a direct sequel to Terminator 2, and though they achieved their goal with the film, he says that the original audience for Terminator was already ‘dead, retired, crippled, or have dementia.’ “It was a non-starter. There was nothing in the movie for a new audience,” said Cameron.
Though the movie may have bombed, Cameron still firmly believes that it’s one of the better entries in the franchise. “I still think mine are the best, but I put it in solid third,” said Cameron, “I think the Rev-9 was cool as shit… Personally, I think that’s as good as anything that we did back then.”
It’s not clear when Terminator will come back to the big screen, but the Terminator: Zero anime on Netflix is getting a lot of great buzz.
