James Cameron Didn’t Want Arnold Schwarzenegger Doing a 5th ‘Terminator’ Movie
Arnold Schwarzenegger has been a central part of James Cameron’s Terminator franchise for several movies.
But at one point, Cameron thought it wasn’t in Schwarzenegger’s best interest to feature in one of the Terminator films. At least until certain conditions were met.
What was the 5th ‘Terminator’ movie?
Cameron’s original Terminator movie was such a success that its mythology has helped spawn an entire franchise of films. The 2015 movie, Terminator Genisys, was the fifth film to come out of the blockbuster series. The movie starred Game of Thrones alum Emilia Clarke as the familiar Sarah O’ Conner, with Schwarzenegger reprising his role as the Terminator. Genisys proved to be a much different take on the franchise, which took place in a slightly altered timeline.
Although Cameron had nothing to do with Genisys, he sung the film’s praises in a 2015 interview with Yahoo.
“I had no idea what to expect sitting down, I wasn’t involved in the making of the film,” Cameron said. “I didn’t direct it, I didn’t write it. I’m just a fanboy.”
The longer he saw the film, the more it impressed him.
“It’s being very respectful of the first two films. And then all of a sudden it just swerves, and now I’m going on a journey. I feel that the franchise has been reinvigorated, like this is a renaissance,” Cameron said. “You look at why the films became classics, they had characters that you like. The new film, which in my mind I think of as the third film, we see Arnold take the character even farther.”
James Cameron advised Arnold Schwarzenegger to avoid doing a 5th ‘Terminator’ movie
Before Genisys, Cameron had his own ideas of where he wanted to see the franchise go. He wanted to see the fifth Terminator movie put more of a focus on Schwarzenegger’s T-800. If it didn’t do that, Cameron thought Schwarzenegger should’ve reconsidered returning to the franchise.
“I was talking to him back in fall about a new Terminator film and quietly advising on that, I suppose you could say,” Cameron once told MTV News (via Contact Music). “I was trying to be as encouraging as possible. Frankly, at that time, I thought it needed to be more about him. I told him he should not do it until it’s focused on his character or he shouldn’t do it.”
Cameron felt that there were more stories to be told about Schwarzenegger’s Terminator character that hadn’t been capitalized on yet. Judging from his later comments about Terminator Genisys, it seemed the movie might have fulfilled some of Cameron’s expectations.
Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t think ‘Terminator Genisys’ needed James Cameron’s endorsement
Like Cameron, Schwarzenegger was proud of Genisys. He had even spoken to Schwarzenegger personally about his positive feelings towards Schwarzenegger being in the movie.
“[James Cameron] saw the movie and he called me to say, ‘You’re fantastic in it. If I would’ve done this movie it would’ve done exactly this story because now you went in a different direction. It’s very refreshing,’ and all this. He was complimenting the movie and he was complimenting me,” Schwarzenegger once recalled in an interview with Collider Extra.
However, Schwarzenegger was against Cameron’s reaction being used to market the film.
“I did not like the idea that the studio went out and used it as a promotional material for the movie because I always felt that if you do that, it looks kind of like we need to have James Cameron say something good about the movie. Which we don’t because the movie is a straight 10, it’s a fantastic movie,” Schwarzenegger explained.
