Terminator Franchise (1984-∞)

[Lost Highway]

Terminator Genisys pretty much bombed at home but still managed to pull $440m worldwide, so there's that, I guess.
The question is whether or not they've been silly enough to give this new one $150m budget again.
EDIT : estimated between $160 and 200m. These guys are crazy.

Having Cameron on board, even if it is just as a producer, guarantees a budget of that size. That type of budget is now expected for a franchise blockbuster. The Cameron produced Alita: Battle Angel had a comparable budget, had less going for it than another Terminator movie in terms of name recognition and performed better than expected. Genisys underperformed because it was a genuinely terrible movie, this can’t be worse. It’s also not helmed by a director who made one of the few MCU movies to be universally disliked.

[moreorless]

Wouldn't it be preferable to let these franchises die and have new, original content instead of drudging up Aliens and Terminators and Predators every few years?

Idealy yes I'd agree but we do seem to be in an environment where studios only want to put funding into existing properties.

I do actually think excessive budgets are part of the problem as well, studios seemingly obsessed with throwing $100-200 million at everything in the hope of Marvel like success and this shifting films away from what could be their natural strengths.

Regardless of whether you enjoy them or not I would say the John Wick films are actually a good advert for limiting a budget, they've remained well under $100 million and its both made it easier to turn a profit and to carry on focusing on what attracted people to them in the first place, that is smaller scale Hong Kong style action rather than grand CGI spectacle.

[bearcuborg]

God...nostalgia piano and Bjork, I don’t need to hear that again, or see this movie. Every fucking trailer looks the same nowadays. Linda looks great, but the new Terminator baddie looks like a dork.

[tehthomas]

This looks awful. They obvi saw the success of the Halloween reboot-prequel whatever it is and said let's do the same thing. It will probably make a lot of dough because Linda Hamilton is back ala JLC. I think the only good thing that came come from this is (hopefully a good) 4K UHD release of the '84 original in time for Dark Fate.

[moreorless]

This looks awful. They obvi saw the success of the Halloween reboot-prequel whatever it is and said let's do the same thing. It will probably make a lot of dough because Linda Hamilton is back ala JLC. I think the only good thing that came come from this is (hopefully a good) 4K UHD release of the '84 original in time for Dark Fate.

Really though it seems more like this element are being used as a marketing plot, the trailer makes the film itself seem far more similar to the recent entries(both in style and lifting plot elements) in the Terminator franchise than the first two films.

[DarkImbecile]

James Cameron announced that Edward Furlong will return in the new Terminator

[mfunk9786]

I hope this means Furlong is doing [much] better these days.

[flyonthewall2983]

He's someone I could see make a comeback if that is indeed true. He had a steady intensity to his work that obviously belied some of those personal demons he dealt with. If there's a bit of flicker left in that flame it could go a ways.

[RIP Film]

Just put myself through Terminator: Dark Fate, which is now on Prime.

Their reason for shoehorning Arnold in this time actually wasn't offensive, and was the one (almost) redeeming aspect of the movie.

SpoilerShow

The premise being that another T-800 shows up and kills John Connor, and after that basically retires, blending in as a human. Putting aside that you would think it would just self-terminate; I found it a touching and interesting idea that a terminator looks for purpose after its mission is over. There's surprising sensitivity in how as it becomes more human, Sarah Connor ostensibly becomes less so and more terminator-like, with the T-800 reaching out to her to give her these "missions", anonymously. Unfortunately all of this is just setup for a much dumber movie, with it quickly retreating to the safety of the T2 formula.

The villain is basically Venom, and it took me till the end to figure out what the hell it was-- I guess a T-800 endoskeleton with a liquid metal T-1000 skin? I still don't know, or care. He doesn't come from Skynet but "Legion", whose terminators look suspiciously like skynet's even though they never existed. Then you have the equally boring augmented human, and the surrogate John Connor character. Yada yada, who cares.

The best sequence in the movie is when John Connor gets shot, only because the de-aging was pretty remarkable. It took me straight back to 1991. The irony is instead of using that opportunity to rewrite the expectations of the franchise, it just chose to do the same thing but worse.

[hearthesilence]

I'm not even sure if I've seen him in anything outside of that 29-year-old film. Wonder if he'll need to do any training to turn himself into an action hero, or if they have something else in mind.

[JamesF]

I'm not even sure if I've seen him in anything outside of that 29-year-old film. Wonder if he'll need to do any training to turn himself into an action hero, or if they have something else in mind.

SpoilerShow

The film came out already, he's barely in it.

I hope Furlong is doing better now. I last saw him in the Night of the Demons remake a decade ago where the size of the bags under his eyes varied from shot to shot, never mind scene to scene.

[hearthesilence]

Whoops - got to pay attention to the dates on every post I read.

[beamish14]

I'm not even sure if I've seen him in anything outside of that 29-year-old film. Wonder if he'll need to do any training to turn himself into an action hero, or if they have something else in mind.

SpoilerShow

The film came out already, he's barely in it.

I hope Furlong is doing better now. I last saw him in the Night of the Demons remake a decade ago where the size of the bags under his eyes varied from shot to shot, never mind scene to scene.

Furlong's had a rough go of things. He was sexually abused by an on-set tutor, who subsequently became a teacher at my alma mater
in Los Angeles (which, in a weird twist, is the school his character in American History X attends). Her outing from student journalists
and the school's efforts to suppress it subsequently became a big story.

[hearthesilence]

Her outing from student journalists and the school's efforts to suppress it subsequently became a big story.

Absolutely disgusting. I can never understand why institutions like the Catholic Church, certain athletic programs and school systems go out of their way to not only protect these individuals but empower them to inflict the same harm on more people again and again. The moral hypocrisy and willed blinders is sickening.

[flyonthewall2983]

I liked the distortion of the Paramount and Fox logos at the opening, the shoehorning of Arnold in RIP Film referred to, and I can't say no to Mackenzie Davis this soon after taking in all of Halt and Catch Fire. Wasn't a waste of time in my estimation but not up to the impossible standards Cameron set before.