Movie maker James Cameron was the original architect behind The Terminator franchise. Over the years, he’s passed on his sci-fi series for other filmmakers to inherit. But there was one Terminator film he counted on not succeeding.
James Cameron once shared he turned his back on his ‘Terminator’ franchise because ‘I’d evolved’
Cameron hasn’t directed a Terminator movie since the second film in the series. Since then, The Terminator franchise has continued without Cameron’s directorial oversight. The continuation of The Terminator franchise was the repercussion for him leaving behind the film series that he expected.
“I kind of turned my back on the Terminator world when there was early talk about a third film. I’d evolved beyond it. I don’t regret that, but I have to live with the consequence, which is that I keep seeing it resurrected,” he once said in an interview with Wired.
But Cameron hasn’t completely distanced himself from the Terminator series. He’s shown his support for films like Terminator: Dark Fate, for instance, which he also served as producer. Not too long ago, Cameron has even discussed the possibility of returning to direct a Terminator film.
“If I were to do another Terminator film and maybe try and to launch that franchise again, which is in discussion, but nothing has been decided, I would make it much more about the AI side of it than bad robots gone crazy,” Cameron said on the Smartless podcast.
James Cameron once named the ‘Terminator’ film he secretly hoped wouldn’t be good
Terminator 3 marked the first time audiences saw Cameron take his hands off of the franchise. The feature was directed by filmmaker Jonathan Mostow, and saw Arnold Schwarzenegger returning without Cameron by his side. Schwarzenegger, however, would find himself surrounded by a new roster of actors, some of which reprising familiar characters.
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Being Cameron’s good friend, the actor knew firsthand how Cameron felt about Terminator 3’s potential success. Needless to say, Cameron’s reaction to Terminator 3 was conflicted.
“He has a part of him that wants the movie to succeed and a part of him that wants it to fail. He has mixed emotions because he started it and I think this one time-wise, it didn’t work out and he didn’t want to be part of it under those constraints that it has to be a summer movie 2003 and he has to do it. He doesn’t operate that way. I totally appreciate that,” Schwarzenegger once said according to Black Film.
Cameron corroborated Schwarzenegger’s claims in a resurfaced interview with MovieWeb. But he was optimistic about Terminator 3 overall, and had confidence in Mostow’s interpretation of his work.
“There was a small part of me that hoped it wasn’t good – but another part of me hoped it succeeded. And it did. And I’m so glad it did. Jonathan’s made a really great movie. Arnold’s in great form. I really like what he’s done with it,” Cameron said.
James Cameron once called the later ‘Terminator’ sequels a bad dream
Terminator: Dark Fate was the one film in the franchise Cameron perhaps had the most involvement in since T2. He was also very optimistic about the project’s future. Back before Dark Fate even had a title, Cameron was adamant that the movie would be the true sequel to his films.
“This is a continuation of the story from Terminator 1 and Terminator 2. And we’re pretending the other films were a bad dream. Or an alternate timeline, which is permissible in our multi-verse,” Cameron told The Hollywood Reporter in 2017.
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