James Cameron and Linda Hamilton Are Coming Back to save the ‘Terminator’ Franchise
Maybe the next Terminator movie won’t suck after all. After learning that Deadpoolmastermind Tim Miller is slated to direct the latest installment of the moribund franchise, we can now confirm that Linda Hamilton—who immortalized the hardscrabble warrior Sarah Connor In he 1984 original and 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day—is also on board.
The announcement was made by none other than James Cameron himself, who was joined by Miller at a Hollywood screening of T2 in 3D on Tuesday.
“As meaningful as she was to gender and action stars everywhere back then, it’s going to make a huge statement to have that seasoned warrior that she’s become return,” Cameron told the audience. “There are 50-year-old, 60-year-old guys out there killing bad guys, but there isn’t an example of that for women.”
Hamilton won’t be the only aging action star returning. Arnold Schwarzenegger is also on board, which makes sense since the latest chapter will pick up where Judgment Dayleft off. Cameron came up with the story himself, which will once again focus on “themes of the potential evils of technology,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The return of the original creative dream team means that the next Terminator is positioning itself as something of a franchise reboot. There’s no word yet if the upcoming film will even acknowledge the three movies and one TV show that came after T2, but Cameron seems intent on pushing the reset button.
He explained that the upcoming film will introduce a whole new cast of characters who’ll set the next phase of the Skynet saga into motion. Cameron and Miller are currently in search of “an 18-something woman’ who’ll be the “centerpiece of the new story.”
“We will have characters from the future and the present,” he added. “There will be mostly new characters but we’ll have Arnold and Linda’s characters to anchor it.”
Cameron came under fire recently, for calling Wonder Woman an “objectified icon” compared to Sarah Connor, whose sexuality was famously downplayed in Terminator 2.
“Sarah Connor was not a beauty icon,” he said at the time. “She was strong, she was troubled, she was a terrible mother, and she earned the respect of the audience through pure grit.”
Though it sounds like she won’t have as much to do this time around, we’re hoping Connor will still get to showcase some of the same ferocity that helped save humanity from the rise of the machines the first time around. If anyone can breathe new life into this stale franchise, it’s her.
