Terminator: The Anime Series is coming soon. The streaming service offered its first update on the series since the project was first announced back in 2021, sharing a new teaser along with the vague release window message during Geeked Week.
While the teaser itself is pretty vague, it does imply that the series will be a prequel of sorts, taking place just before August 30th, 1997 -- Judgment Day -- the day that the artificial network known as Skynet became self-aware, leading to an all-out war between humans and machines.
Speaking to IGN, Netflix's Terri Schwartz provided further details:
"In August 1997, a computer scientist named Malcom Lee is working furiously from his lab in Tokyo to launch an AI program he believes will save the world. As the course of the future changes from the past, an unrelenting assassin is sent back in time to murder Malcom and his three children in order to ensure its future dominance over humanity. The assassin is followed through time by a lone soldier who will do anything to keep Malcom and his family alive in order to prove, once and for all, there is no fate."
Unfortunately, no other details for Terminator: The Anime Series were offered, but if it is indeed coming to Netflix soon than it shouldn't be long now before we get a proper trailer.
Terminator: The Anime Series is executive-produced by Skydance, Japan Animation Studio Production I.G. (Ghost in the Shell, B: The Beginning), and Mattson Tomlin. Tomlin (Project Power, The Batman) is also serving as showrunner and executive producer
“Anyone who knows my writing knows I believe in taking big swings and going for the heart. I'm honored that Netflix and Skydance have given me the opportunity to approach Terminator in a way that breaks conventions, subverts expectations and has real guts," Tomlin said back when the series was first announced in 2021.
1984's The Terminator and 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day remain two of the most beloved action movies of all time, but as a whole, the franchise has struggled in recent years. Terminator: Dark Fate, the most recent film released in 2019, had mixed audience reviews and earned just $261 million worldwide. Although Dark Fate was intended to spawn a new trilogy of Terminator films, the movie's box office struggles resulted in those plans getting canceled.