James Cameron writing new Terminator movie – but he’s “waiting”

James Cameron has started writing movie in The Terminator franchise – but there’s a good reason he’s “waiting” before taking it any further.

Before crowning himself the box office king of the world twice (thrice, if you count Avatar reclaiming the throne from Avengers: Endgame), Cameron rose to fame with 1984’s The Terminator, a tech-noir horror actioner with a star-making performance from Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He directed its sequel T2: Judgement Day (one of the greatest movies of all time), had no role in Rise of the Machines, Salvation, or Genesis, and helped to produce Dark Fate, none of which connected with audiences on the same culture-defining level.

While hard at work on Avatar 3 and the other sequels, Cameron has also revealed he’s writing a new Terminator movie – but he’s holding off a bit, and this is why.

James Cameron explains why he’s waiting to write new Terminator movie

According to Rod Mercado (@rcmercado), Cameron recently appeared at the Dell Technologies World 2023 conference in Las Vegas, where he announced he’d already started developing a new Terminator film.

“So James Cameron just told the #DellTechWorld crowd that he started writing a new Terminator movie 3 months ago but wants to see how #AI shakes out before he goes any further,” Mercado wrote.

This comes after Schwarzenegger confirmed he was done with the series in the wake of the muted response to Dark Fate, which saw him reunite with co-star Linda Hamilton. “The franchise is not done. I’m done,” he said.

“I got the message loud and clear that the world wants to move on with a different theme when it comes to The Terminator.”

Dark Fate was originally meant to be the launchpad for a new Terminator trilogy, with Cameron seemingly returning in a more active creative capacity to pen the scripts. However, its dismal returns – a loss of more than $120 million – nixed those plans.

During an appearance on the SmartLess podcast in December 2022, Cameron said a reboot of the franchise was “in discussion, but nothing has been decided.”

“If I were to do another Terminator film and maybe try to launch that franchise again, which is in discussion, but nothing has been decided, I would make it much more about the AI side of it than bad robots gone crazy,” he added.

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