Cameron reiterates that Terminator: Dark Fate could start a trilogy

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Two years ago, we heard that THE TERMINATOR and TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY writer/director James Cameron was returning to the franchise he created to produce a new sequel – a sequel that we now know as TERMINATOR: DARK FATE. At that time, Cameron said that he and producer David Ellison of Skydance Media were thinking of reviving the series with "a three-film arc".

Now that a new trailer for TERMINATOR: DARK FATE has arrived online, Cameron has confirmed to Deadline that the creative team behind this movie still has that "three-film arc" in the back of their minds. He told them that he, Ellison, and DARK FATE director Tim Miller 

spent several weeks breaking story and figuring out what type of story we wanted to tell so we would have something to pitch Linda (Hamilton). We rolled up our sleeves and started to break out the story and when we got a handle on something we looked at it as a three-film arc, so there is a greater story there to be told. If we get fortunate enough to make some money with DARK FATE we know exactly where we can go with the subsequent films."

TERMINATOR: DARK FATE ignores the events of the TERMINATOR films Cameron wasn't involved with, and during his conversation with Deadline he revealed that it was Ellison who suggested that they should wipe the slate clean and make a film that was only connected to the first two films. That's somewhat surprising since Ellison also produced the now-ignored TERMINATOR: GENISYS, but apparently Ellison felt GENISYS "fell short of the mark and didn’t really do what he had wanted it to do."

During their time crafting the story with writers David S. Goyer, Justin Rhodes, Charles Eglee, and Josh Friedman, the DARK FATE creative team did take in viewings of TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES, TERMINATOR: SALVATION, and GENISYS, studying them and figuring out what not to do with the new film. Once the story was in place, the script was written by Goyer, Rhodes, and Billy Ray.

We've heard TERMINATOR trilogy talk before. TERMINATOR: SALVATION was supposed to start a trilogy. So was TERMINATOR: GENISYS – and in fact, when Miller was first hired to direct a new TERMINATOR film it was going to be a sequel to GENISYS. We'll have to wait and see if trilogy plans will actually pan out this time.

TERMINATOR: DARK FATE stars Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, Arnold Schwarzenegger as a heroic Terminator, Natalia Reyes as heroine Dani, Mackenzie Davis as machine fighter Grace, Gabriel Luna as a villainous Terminator, Diego Boneta as Dani's brother, and Edward Furlong in "a small role" as John Connor. Brett Azar and Jude Collie were the CGI stand-ins for Schwarzenegger and Furlong in scenes that take place during the time of TERMINATOR 2.

The new sequel and potential trilogy starter reaches theatres on November 1st.