James Cameron Says Terminator: Dark Fate Filmmakers Were "High on Their Own Supply" Making Sequel

Back in 2019, Terminator: Dark Fate was set to revive the Terminator franchise to its former glory, as it not only brought together Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton for the first time since Terminator 2: Judgment Day, but also saw franchise creator James Cameron serving as a producer. While it did earn relatively positive reviews, the film was a financial disappointment and no updates to the series have emerged since that sequel, with Cameron himself recently admitting that maybe he and director Tim Miller bought too much into their own hopes for the film and might have lost touch with what would really have been best for the overall narrative.

"I'm actually reasonably happy with the film. Tim and I had our battles and we've both spoken about that, but the crazy thing is we're still pals. Which is weird," Cameron revealed to Deadline. "I liked him before the movie, didn't like him very much during the movie, and I like him now, and I think he feels the same way. We're both these crazy sci-fi geeks and we like a lot of the same things, and I love his show, Love, Death + Robots. But yeah, we butted heads."

He continued, "I think the problem, and I'm going to wear this one, is that I refused to do it without Arnold. Tim didn't want Arnold, but I said, 'Look, I don't want that. Arnold and I have been friends for 40 years, and I could hear it, and it would go like this: "Jim, I can't believe you're making a Terminator movie without me."' It just didn't mean that much to me to do it, but I said, 'If you guys could see your way clear to bringing Arnold back and then, you know, I'd be happy to be involved.'"

Even though there were promising elements about bringing back staples of the franchise like Schwarzenegger and Hamilton, the reality of how much time had passed since audiences first met them might have prevented younger generations from being excited by the sequel.

"And then Tim wanted Linda. I think what happened is I think the movie could have survived having Linda in it, I think it could have survived having Arnold in it, but when you put Linda and Arnold in it and then, you know, she's 60-something, he's 70-something, all of a sudden it wasn't your Terminator movie, it wasn't even your dad's Terminator movie, it was your granddad's Terminator movie," Cameron expressed. "And we didn't see that. We loved it, we thought it was cool, you know, that we were making this sort of direct sequel to a movie that came out in 1991. And young moviegoing audiences weren't born. They wouldn't even have been born for another 10 years."

He added, "So, it was just our own myopia. We kind of got a little high on our own supply, and I think that's the lesson there."

There are currently no confirmed plans for a new big-screen Terminator adventure, though Netflix announced in 2021 plans for a Terminator anime series.

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