The New Terminator Film Will Actually Be a Reboot Trilogy
The Human Machine
News on the upcoming Terminator movie has been vague up to now. We’ve known that siblings David and Megan Ellison are producing, that it has some writers, that it may or may not be a reboot, that Fast Five director Justin Lin was at one point attached but might not be now, and that Arnold Schwarzenegger would be back for it. Well, like the Terminator himself, the movie just keeps trucking along, and as such we now have some more concrete details.
Namely: A release date. It will be followed by two other Terminators. And, yes, it is a reboot.
Via the press release:
Skydance Productions, Annapurna Pictures and Paramount Pictures have jointly announced they will partner on a rebooted “TERMINATOR” movie, to be released by Paramount Pictures on June 26, 2015.
The first in a stand-alone trilogy, “TERMINATOR” will be produced by Megan Ellison of Annapurna and David Ellison of Skydance. Dana Goldberg and Paul Schwake of Skydance will serve as executive producers. Laeta Kalorgridis (“Avatar,” “Shutter Island”) and Patrick Lussier (“Drive Angry”) are attached to write the screenplay.
According to Deadline the three films might be two, as the Ellisons only have until 2019 before the rights to the franchise revert back to James Cameron. The press release has no mention of Schwarzenegger’s continued involvement in the franchise; Deadline says he’ll be back (actually it says “Arnold Schwarzenegger returns as the title character,” because they’re better able to avoid an “I’ll be back” joke than I), but according to E “the studio [cannot] confirm” the actor’s involvement.
This might be blasphemous of me to say, but… I kind of don’t want him to be in the reboot. The guy hasn’t aged well. It’s possible that he’ll have a smaller role than in the first trilogy (“title character” doesn’t have to mean “main character”), but that reeks of stunt casting and could just be distracting. I wouldn’t object to a cameo, but if you’re giving a franchise a brand new start, why would you keep the same actor?
That said, we know nothing about the content of the film or the extent of Schwarzenegger’s involvement, and whatever role if ends up having (if any) could be written well. Plus it’s not like Megan Ellison’s previous shot at an Arnie-less Terminator did particularly well, so she and David might want to get back to the franchise’s roots with this one.
If the Ellisons are going for a different actor for the lead the only one I will accept is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. There’s been a rumor floating around that he’s being courted to co-star in the film as a Terminator going up a possibly human (?) Schwarzenegger, but the source is the Examiner, meaning it’s not exactly reliable.
But still. The Rock should be the new Terminator. Think about it. You know I’m right.
(via: io9)
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