The “Terminator” franchise has been all but dead to me. The last two films, “Terminator: Salvation” and “Terminator: Genisys,” well, they were soul-crushing. The only way I could hop back onto the bandwagon would be if James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton would make their return. Well, I wouldn't be writing this if that weren't the case. Yes, Hamilton, Arnie and James Cameron, as producer, are coming back for T6. “Deadpool” helmer Tim Miller will be directing, that's a good thing. In a chat with THR, Cameron and Miller are confirming that “This is a continuation of the story from ‘Terminator 1’ and ‘Terminator 2,’ Cameron further elaborates “And we’re pretending the other films were a bad dream. Or an alternate timeline, which is permissible in our multi-verse.” Amen!
The major surprise in all of this? Cameron luring back Hamilton, the main star of his two films in the franchise, and, gulp, his ex-wife. “Jim was fucking terrified,” Miller jokes. “I was,” Cameron confirms. “It took me a week just to get up the nerve. No, that’s not true. Linda and I have a great relationship. We’ve stayed friends through the thick and thin of it all. And she is the mother of my eldest daughter. So I called her up, and I said: ‘Look, we could rest on our laurels. It’s ours to lose, in a sense. We created this thing several decades ago. But, here’s what can be really cool. You can come back and show everybody how it’s done.’ Because in my mind, it hasn’t been done a whole lot since the way she did it back in ’91.”
So with all that in mind, what’s missing? A screenwriter of course. A competent, professional wordsmith would be the next step to lay ground to Cameron’s creative plan, and it seems like, according to The Wrap, a scribe has been found in Billy Ray. Ray, if you remember, wrote and directed the highly underappreciated “Shattered Glass” where Hayden Christensen gave, by far, the best performance of his career. Ray’s other works include directing another excellent film, “Breach,” and writing solid genre fare (“Flightplan,” “The Hunger Games,” and “Captain Phillips.”)
So now all we need is a release date. Well, guess what? A July 26th, 2019 date has been announced, which means this project better hurry up into production sooner rather than later. This has just sky-rocketed at the top of my must-see list for 2019.