McG Reflects on Terminator Salvation's Darker Alternate Ending

The alternate ending was "beyond dark," according to the director.

By Patrick Cavanaugh

After a trilogy of Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring films, 2009's Terminator Salvation aimed to serve as both a continuation of the original mythology while also rebooting the overall themes of the concept, with director McG recently noting that his original ending for the film was "beyond dark" compared to the theatrical ending. The filmmaker noted how he and his team had high hopes for how to put their own spin on the franchise and that its critical and financial disappointments took a toll on him. McG's latest film is Family Switch, a body-swapping comedy that debuts on Netflix on November 30th.

"We tried hard. On that one, we brought in Jonah Nolan to write it, there was a writers' strike back then. Brought in Christian Bale, you can't reach much higher than that. We certainly gave it everything we had. A lot of people like that movie, it didn't quite do what I hoped it was gonna do and I've been living with that wound a long time," McG shared with ComicBook.com about the project. "There's a cut out there with an entirely different ending, I just can't share it with the world yet. It's beyond dark."

The landscape of alternate cuts of movies has changed in recent years, allowing opportunities for filmmakers to release their original vision of projects to audiences on streaming services. McG previously shared similar sentiments about hoping to release his own cut of Terminator Salvation to audiences back in 2020.

"It's interesting because I feel like we did so much right with Terminator but, ultimately, got just enough wrong that we got beat up a little bit by the fanbase and it really, really broke my heart," McG shared with CBR. "And now, strangely, I think the film has started to age better. And there is a different cut: I have my own cut of that film and there's people online that talk about wanting to see that cut. And that's interesting! But I think I got a lot of things right with that."

He continued, "Obviously, I think [uncredited screenwriter] Jonah Nolan is very, very serious writer and he did the best he could. And Christian is maybe the most talented actor working today and Sam [Worthington] did a really good job also ... I think I got to take the punch on that one for not quite nailing the landing on the final expression of that movie and, who knows, maybe the cut that I have of that movie hidden away is the answer. It's darker! I don't know, that's for the fans to say."

Family Switch is described, "When a family switches bodies with each other during a rare planetary alignment, their hilarious journey to find their way back to normal will bring them closer together than they ever thought possible."

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Stay tuned for updates on the future of the Terminator franchise.

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