TERMINATOR: James Cameron Has Started Writing New Movie But The Rise Of A.I. Has Given Him Pause For Thought

TERMINATOR: James Cameron Has Started Writing New Movie But The Rise Of A.I. Has Given Him Pause For Thought

After confirming that he's begun working on a new Terminator movie, Avatar director James Cameron admits he's decided to put the project to once side while he continues to monitor the rise of real-life A.I.

By JoshWilding - May 26, 2023 05:05 AM EST
Filed Under: Terminator
Source: SFFGazette.com

After helming Deadpool, Tim Miller quickly became one of Hollywood's most in-demand filmmakers. When creative differences with Ryan Reynolds led to the filmmaker walking away from Fox's planned sequel, he set about rebooting the Terminator franchise alongside James Cameron, welcome news after the disastrous Terminator Genisys a few years prior.

Cameron publicly gave the movie his seal of approval, a decision he's since admitted regretting due to what a colossal disaster Genisys ended up being. 

While Dark Fate ended up scoring positive reviews and praise from fans, it didn't make the necessary impact at the box office. With only $62 million in North America and $261 million worldwide, the blockbuster was deemed a flop and seemingly put the iconic franchise back on the shelf.

Cameron, who helmed Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day, has previously shared his hopes to do something new with the franchise, and recently confirmed (via SFFGazette.com) at the Dell Tech World event that he started writing a new movie three months ago. 

Unfortunately, he's since decided to put the project on pause while he waits to see how A.I. advances in the real world. We're not sure why he feels the need, but it's hard not to trust the man who brought these characters to life on screen for the first time all those years ago.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has confirmed he's done playing the T-800 and plans for the franchise in theaters remain as uncertain as ever, even amid these comments from Cameron. This movie clearly isn't a major priority, but now might be a good time to bring the franchise back to television as a streaming platform could be the perfect way to put a fresh spin on the war between man and machine.

It's a real shame the movies have been on the decline since Terminator 2: Judgement Day was released way back in 1991, but a full-blown reboot with no links to the original seems like the best possible option at this stage. 

With any luck, we'll have more details about Cameron's plans to share with you soon. 

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CoHost
CoHost - 5/26/2023, 5:54 AM
Avatar 2 made 2 billion yet has made zero impact. It's kinda incredible.
SuperiorHeckler
SuperiorHeckler - 5/26/2023, 6:04 AM
@CoHost - Because it's essentially a Disney ride up on screen. It's fun. People flocked to it. They paid their admission fee. But, like an amusement park ride, when it's over with, you don't really think about it too much going forward. 🫤
bobevanz
bobevanz - 5/26/2023, 6:05 AM
@CoHost - It got people out of the house, I'd say that was a big impact. It proves that movie theaters will never die
CoHost
CoHost - 5/26/2023, 6:08 AM
@SuperiorHeckler - I had more investment in T2: 3D than this.
Origame
Origame - 5/26/2023, 6:25 AM
@CoHost - ...how's making $2 billion not an impact by itself? What are you guys expecting here?
Jacory
Jacory - 5/26/2023, 6:39 AM
@CoHost - Impact? What are you talking about?
Fogs
Fogs - 5/26/2023, 7:13 AM
@CoHost - Money laundering scheme.
philinterrupted
philinterrupted - 5/26/2023, 8:56 AM
@Origame - it made a lot of money. But I think when you engineer a movie to be a theater going experience (3D high frame rates) people will go to the theater to see it. It’s more of an attraction than a typical movie going experience. I’d be interested to see how it sells at home in comparison to other movies home sales.
But the comments on impact have always been about the story content. There’s not much argument against both avatars are pretty hacky in that area.
Origame
Origame - 5/26/2023, 9:32 AM
@philinterrupted - 1) go to the theaters, yes. $2 billion worth of people? And post pandemic? Even the almighty mcu can't pull that off.

2) well that impact is pretty unfair considering avatar has always been about experience and visual spectacle. And those have had a huge impact. What it did, it did great. And that's what got the big impact.

3) we also can't forget about industrial impact. So many studios are now using the tech from the original avatar to make their worlds. And now avatar 2 will revolutionize things with its underwater motion capture tech.

Imagine aquaman using that tech.
philinterrupted
philinterrupted - 5/26/2023, 10:04 AM
@Origame - well, didn’t the first Aquaman “benefit” from Avatar? Was Aquaman a good movie? Is a movie good based on how much money it makes?

But again. People are talking impact from a story narrative point of view. Not the technical impact. You’re conflating two different topics.
Origame
Origame - 5/26/2023, 10:43 AM
@philinterrupted - ...what's your point? This isn't about it being good. It's about impact.

And they need to be more clear if that's what they really meant.
philinterrupted
philinterrupted - 5/26/2023, 12:25 PM
@Origame - I think with Avatar that’s always been the critique. The first one was the biggest box office of all time for years but had no cultural relevance. This new one is kind of following that path.
Origame
Origame - 5/26/2023, 1:38 PM
@philinterrupted - ...when I've heard the idea of impact its been impact in general.
Scripturepoetic
Scripturepoetic - 5/27/2023, 12:23 AM
@CoHost -

Cultural Impact...

I doubt very much, that Cameron's objective is artistic or intellectual

Cameron makes movies for the objective of yielding the highest Box Office gross, that stays at the TOP SPOT, for the longest amount of time
SuperiorHeckler
SuperiorHeckler - 5/26/2023, 6:01 AM
We may have reached the creative-point of exhaustion that the physical representation of AI running around must ALWAYS be a hot-sexy female or muscle-bound he-man Terminator. Perhaps a more mature approach with the emphasis on suspense and not explosions could be a way forward to offer-up something fresh, something different, something thought provoking. James is right to wait this out a little IMO. 🧐
CorndogBurglar
CorndogBurglar - 5/26/2023, 6:14 AM
@SuperiorHeckler - Right.....he should make a movie called TERMINATOR and not have explosions...
CorndogBurglar
CorndogBurglar - 5/26/2023, 6:20 AM
A few months back didn't Cameron make some kind of comment about how he wouldn't have made the movies he's made if he had known gun violence was going to spin out of control the way it has? I coukd swear I remember that.

This kind of reminds me of that. He needs to remember that these are movies. It's fantasy. If AI turns out being or acting different than SkyNet, then who the hell cares? Lol

He seems to get weirder and weirder as he ages.
pitbull76
pitbull76 - 5/26/2023, 6:21 AM
I don't know about his script but the A.I stuff is getting crazy to the point i heard Biggie rapping 2pacs hit em up like wtf.Also it sounded so real.
Repian
Repian - 5/26/2023, 6:31 AM
I would watch a movie with Arnold as a major who leads a group of surviving Marines during the early days post-Judgment Day. These men try to resist the first wave of Skynet. A killing horde of "primitives" T-100.
CorndogBurglar
CorndogBurglar - 5/26/2023, 6:38 AM
@Repian - That could be cool. But they should just do a series and focus totally on the future war. Way in the future. Loke the scene we saw in T2.
pitbull76
pitbull76 - 5/26/2023, 6:57 AM
@CorndogBurglar - yes one of my favorite scenes from they franchise it always wanted me to see more of it.
JayBarrick
JayBarrick - 5/26/2023, 7:17 AM
@Repian - that's actually an interesting pitch
CorndogBurglar
CorndogBurglar - 5/26/2023, 6:36 AM
I don't understand why they are struggling so hard with this franchise.

They want to do something different? Something that every other Terminator movie hasn't done? It's so simple and it's right in front of their faces, yet no one can see it.

You take the main theme of the entire franchise, the inevitable war against the machines in the future, and you make that a trilogy. We don't need to see another Terminator movie in the present tell us the same exact thing they've been telling us for decades, that no matter what they do in the present, they can't stop fate. The war HAS to happen. This is the reason why the Terminator franchise is a time paradox. It's the entire reason SkyNet exists in the future before it was actually created in the past.

And I don't mean some Terminator Salvation BS. I'm talking far in the future, where the machines are using energy, the sky is burnt out from all the war, and the Terminator robots are straight up annihilating everything. The scene we saw in T2. MAKE THAT ffs.

Start with the humans sending Kyle Reese into the past as a "last ditch effort" to save the world. But don't show Kyle Reese's time in the past. We already saw that and how it played out. Instead, stay in the future and give them something to fight for while they hold out against the closk to see if Kyle Reese succeeds.

Then, at the end of the movie, they come to the realization that Reese succeeded since they still have their "savior", John Connor.

Then the other two movies can be about them sending their own Terminator back to stop the T-1000 from killing John and then coming to the hard realization that no matter what happens in the past, their war will always happen. Then focus on them having to overthrow the machines on their own.

Basically, it would be a series about what is happening in the future while we were watching the events in the past during T1, T2, and T3.

All the other Terminator movies after those can suck a fat one for all I care. They were all bad. Even T3 was bad, but it was at least relevant to the story.

Jesus H Christ, Cameron. Make that movie, for crying out loud.
newhire13
newhire13 - 5/26/2023, 9:04 AM
@CorndogBurglar - They had just beaten Skynet though. That’s supposed to be why it sends The Terminator(s) back, as it’s last ditch effort to win.
CorndogBurglar
CorndogBurglar - 5/26/2023, 9:15 AM
@newhire13 - Is that ever explained in the movies? Because in T2 they definitely make it look like the Machines are kicking all kinds of ass.

MosquitoFarmer
MosquitoFarmer - 5/26/2023, 9:48 AM
@CorndogBurglar - You lost me at "make that a trilogy". They can't even get one movie to succeed, and you're banking on sequels getting made. At least you're thinking like Cameron though (with a dozen Avatar sequels down the line).
CorndogBurglar
CorndogBurglar - 5/26/2023, 12:48 PM
@MosquitoFarmer - I'm just thinking ahead. I would WANT a trilogy if they were doing it right.
TyrantBossMedia
TyrantBossMedia - 5/26/2023, 6:37 AM
“ While Dark Fate ended up scoring positive reviews and praise from fans”

Not all fans. That movie was trash.
TyrantBossMedia
TyrantBossMedia - 5/26/2023, 6:43 AM
I get it, it’s an IP and Hollywood gates to let go of IPs because that would force the striking hack writers to actually be creative and original….but There is nowhere else to go with the Terminator franchise.

They could have easily connected the loop in the movies with Terminator to T2, to T3, to Terminator Salvation which took us into the early period of the machine uprising and start of the resistance…but they never took us into the machine war which is what we wanted to see which should have ended with Kyle Reese being sent back to protect Sarah. That would have tied it all up neatly.

But let’s be honest, they should have stopped with T2.
I liked T3, but it wasn’t necessary, nor was anything else since then.
DocSpock
DocSpock - 5/26/2023, 11:01 AM
@TyrantBossMedia -

What? You didn't like the terminator living out his life domestically as a fake human with that old Mexican lady??

The very idea of that was sooo LOL terrible.

TyrantBossMedia
TyrantBossMedia - 5/26/2023, 12:06 PM
@DocSpock - Living his life domestically as a drapery installer with impotence.

The movie was so WOKE that the one, while male character was turned into a beta male, and the only other male was an evil Hispanic.

DocSpock
DocSpock - 5/26/2023, 12:24 PM
@TyrantBossMedia -

Next up: Terminator 7: The quadruple gender middle school janitor.

MochaKing
MochaKing - 5/26/2023, 6:54 AM
What if he uses ChatGpt for writing the script
pitbull76
pitbull76 - 5/26/2023, 7:02 AM
@MochaKing - lol he already had his hands on that before anyone else did.That how he made the first Avatar he typed in make a script like Dancing with wolfs but with blue people.
bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 5/26/2023, 6:58 AM
AI should make it easier. Cameron should go all-in and just have that write a script for him and just finetune it himself
CorndogBurglar
CorndogBurglar - 5/26/2023, 7:17 AM
@bkmeijer1 - Lmao. I feel like asking an AI to write a movie about AI becoming sentient and killing all humans would be a bad idea.

We don't need to put that idea in the minds of AI. Lol.
bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 5/26/2023, 7:32 AM
@CorndogBurglar - bet it's already there. If anything, the AI would probably reveal it's own plan for world domination. Gives us insight to how to prepare
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