This month, the Terminator franchise is expanding with a new animated show, Terminator Zero, but franchise creator James Cameron is not involved. Instead, Cameron is engrossed in his own secretive Terminator project. While little is known about this next instalment, there is a chance that he’s been developing a script for Terminator 7.
Cameron, who directed and co-wrote the iconic The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and contributed to the 2019 film Terminator: Dark Fate, shared with The Hollywood Reporter his curiosity about Terminator Zero. He likened his detached fascination to his feelings about The Sarah Connor Chronicles, expressing interest in seeing how others interpret and expand the universe he created. His full comments are as follows:
“It looks interesting. My relationship to that is very much like The Sarah Connor Chronicles — other people spinning stories in a world I set in motion is interesting to me. What’s their takeaway? What intrigued them about it? Where are they going with it? It looks like they’re going back to the root cause of Judgment Day — the nuclear war — and whether that’s an ultimate timeline. I’d be curious to see what they’ve come up with.
I’m working on my own Terminator stuff right now. It’s got nothing to do with that. Like with The Sarah Connor Chronicles, they occasionally touched on things I had been playing with completely independently. So there’s some curiosity there. It’s not a burning curiosity, but, obviously, it’d be nice to see it succeed.”
When asked about more details regarding his Terminator project, Cameron remained tight-lipped. “It’s totally classified. I don’t want to have to send out a potentially dangerous robotic agent if you were to talk about it, even retroactively.”
This project marks another chapter in Cameron’s long-term engagement with the Terminator series, which he has revisited periodically since Dark Fate. In previous statements, Cameron mentioned he was waiting to see how the world embraced AI before advancing his next Terminator narrative, indicating that AI development might influence the storyline.
Despite his foundational role in the franchise and his contributions to some of its most successful films, Cameron’s recent projects haven’t quite reached the high bar set by the first two films. Dark Fate received warmer reception than some other sequels but still didn’t match the critical acclaim of The Terminator or Judgment Day. This suggests that while Cameron’s involvement is crucial, the Terminator series might benefit from fresh creative perspectives to invigorate the next instalment.
As James Cameron continues to focus on his Avatar sequels, the feasibility of him directing Terminator 7 seems uncertain. The franchise, while pivotal in science fiction cinema, may need new creative direction to thrive in today’s film landscape. For fans, the hope is that new entries, possibly including Cameron’s mysterious project, will successfully revive the essence of the original films without merely rehashing previous themes.
Natalie is a big fan of anything related to movies, TV shows, games, and comics — you name it. When she’s not reading or geeking out about the latest shows on Netflix, she’s probably playing gacha and tabletop games, or daydreaming of meeting her idols.
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