Ever since Megan Ellison won the rights to James Cameron's TERMINATOR franchise, we have been told the plan was for TERMINATOR: GENISYS to kick off a new, stand-alone trilogy of films. Mostly, this was to maximize profits on the series before the rights reverted back to Cameron, but also because Hollywood cannot make a single movie anymore. Well, it seems like the person thinking most logically about the future of THE TERMINATOR is none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger himself.
Speaking with the press following a screening of TERMINATOR: GENISYS, Schwarzenegger was directly asked whether he would return for the proposed sequels. His answer may surprise you.
The studio is maybe thinking so. But I, myself, I always think of one at a time. … To me, it’s [more] important that the people go and see this movie, that the movie’s successful, that it gets good reviews, that people enjoy it, and that the demand of you all creates a desire for us to do another one, rather than to be presumptuous and to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to do two more.’"
It is easy to forget that while Arnold Schwarzenegger was (and is) a massive movie star, he has only appeared in multiple films in three franchises: THE TERMINATOR, CONAN and THE EXPENDABLES. In those series, none of the sequels were made in rapid succession to the first with THE EXPENDABLES waiting a couple of years between entries. While I doubt Arnold has any final decision on whether the sequels happen, he is right that it will depend on box office results. As it stands, the buzz from the online community is decidedly negative for TERMINATOR: GENISYS. We shall see how the rest of the public feels about it.
TERMINATOR: GENISYS opens July 1st.
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