James Cameron Teases A Return To One Of His Most Successful Franchises

By Andrew Sanford | News | August 14, 2024 |

By Andrew Sanford | News | August 14, 2024 |

Sequels and adaptations have always “plagued” Hollywood. Whether or not that’s a bad or good thing depends on who you’re talking to. Plenty of people want the same thing over and over again. They are perfectly content to receive the seventeenth entry in their favorite movie franchise and their “hot take” is that none of those entries are bad. Other folks outright reject anything that isn’t new, push boundaries, and reflect a niche point of view. Somewhere in the middle lay James Cameron.

Cameron is not a small-time, indie director. He isn’t making movies that will make you question your worldview. The man doesn’t make “small” movies. Even at his earliest efforts, his films were big in scope and scale. Since then, he has only gone bigger and grander, while still pumping out (mostly) original concepts and stories. Titanic was based on real events. There is a chance, down the line, we will learn the same thing about the Terminator franchise.

The Terminator films tell the story of a future overrun by murderous Artificial intelligence. Robots decide that humanity is a problem and proceed to wipe us off the map. A small resistance force remains, fighting against the robots that seek to destroy all humans. That force is led by a man named John Conner who is so important to the resistance that the robots send Arnold Schwarzenegger back in time to eliminate him. But then the humans send him back… but also the robots again? Then there’s one that was left behind but also good? And there’s a new bad one and a new good one?

The franchise has gotten away from its simpler roots. What began as a sci-fi slasher movie has turned into a franchise with rich, albeit confusing, mythology that has been passed back and forth between different creative forces. Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd may have created the films, but many people have left their stamp on it since. A new anime for Netflix called Terminator Zero is set to be released in late August. James Cameron has some thoughts.

While Cameron agrees that he is “overbearing” in the same interview, he doesn’t seem to have a problem with new creators picking up where he left off. “It looks interesting,” Cameron told The Hollywood Reporter about Terminator Zero. “My relationship to that is very much like The Sarah Connor Chronicles — other people spinning stories in a world I set in motion is interesting to me. What’s their takeaway? What intrigued them about it? Where are they going with it?”

He continued, saying, “It looks like they’re going back to the root cause of Judgment Day — the nuclear war — and whether that’s an ultimate timeline. I’d be curious to see what they’ve come up with. I’m working on my own Terminator stuff right now. It’s got nothing to do with that. Like with The Sarah Connor Chronicles, they occasionally touched on things I had been playing with completely independently. So there’s some curiosity there. It’s not a burning curiosity, but, obviously, it’d be nice to see it succeed.”

Now look, Cameron could just be reacting as a fan. He has never been shy about praising the mythology that he created. Regardless, he also likely gets some scratch if Terminator properties do well. That could help fund his deep-sea excursions. Also, if the films do well, he can continue to play in that sandbox. He’s working on something in that world, but would not get into detail. “It’s totally classified, he said of his new Terminator project. “I don’t want to have to send out a potentially dangerous robotic agent if you were to talk about it, even retroactively.”

James Cameron will continue to be an anomaly in Hollywood. He is capable of making big, original movies and beginning massive, successful franchises in the same bow. It’s just nice having him around.