Terminator Producers Want a New Franchise ‘For The Fans’

Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on May 21, 2008

Much has already been said about the upcoming, and still very much alive fourth installment in the Terminator series, which will be brought to life by Charlie’s Angels director McG for a May 22, 2009 release. In fact, the pre-production period for this film seems to be as much a roller-coaster ride for fans as previous films in the series, with countless moments of great highs (including the casting of Christian Bale as John Connor) and depressing lows (the naming of the aforementioned McG as director).

But despite the ups and downs — and the looming possibility of Pauly Shore’s involvement in the flick (which we completely made up for the sake of discussion) — the film’s producers Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek, whose company Halcyon is overseeing things, seem to be optimistic that they are making a film that will not only reboot the Terminator of old, but will also have enough staying power that it will be able to sustain not one, but two sequels.

In order to be sure of this, they have signed star Christian Bale on for the entire trilogy. But as Kubicek explained to BBC News in Cannes this week, that did not come without some initial hesitation. “Christian was our first choice and he’s a big fan of The Terminator, so we’re very lucky. But with Batman he’s already done the whole franchise thing, so we weren’t sure he’d respond.”

Luckily Bale responded by signing on the dotted line, locking him in to play the post apocalyptic, post Skynet era John Connor that will take on a fresh, new brand of Terminator. With that in mind though, one question still looms: Where is Arnie in all of this? The producers chose to stay quiet as to the California Governer’s potential involvement, but they didn’t exactly deny it. “We can’t talk about the story points at all,” said Kubicek, adding the project was being kept strictly under wraps. “Not everyone gets to see the script. They only see the part of the script that’s relevant to the job they’re doing.”

One thing we do know about the film, based on what the producers have said, is that they are keeping the fans of the original series in mind throughout the entire process. “We’re both huge Terminator fans and we’re just approaching it from the point of view of what we’d like to see,” said Anderson. “Any time we’re feeling pressure we just take a step back and say, as fans, ‘what would we like to see?’”

That brings me to a question: What would Terminator fans like to see in the fourth installment?

Feel free to drop your thoughts in the “Sound Off” section below.

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