In a couple years, a new Terminator won’t be bargained with, reasoned with, or feel pity, remorse or fear when it returns to the big screen in the summer of 2015. Whether it can be stopped at the box office remains to be seen.
Paramount Pictures has somewhat surprisingly announced a collaboration with Skydance Productions and Annapurna Pictures that will bring back the menacing and iconic Terminator killing machine to cinemas in a new “rebooted” film. Paramount will distribute the film in North America on June 26, 2015, the first in a planned all-new standalone trilogy.
Details surrounding the nature of this “reboot,” and I cannot stress Paramount’s direct use of that specific descriptive term enough, are being kept under tight wraps at this time, but Deadline is reporting that Arnold Schwarzenegger “will be back” and reprise the role that further cemented his successful career. By next summer, when Terminator (the current name Paramount is using) theoretically begins filming, Schwarzenegger would be turning 67 years old.
Deadline also reports that there is pressure on the three companies involved to get the new Terminator films out the door as soon as possible before the rights revert back to James Cameron. It’s looking like the first two films of this new trilogy could be made and released within that time frame. The third film could potentially shut down if Cameron so desired.
The Terminator screenplay is being written by Laeta Kalorgridis (Avatar and Shutter Island) and Patrick Lussier (Drive Angry). A strong producing team includes Dave Ellison of Skydance, whom has worked on many big event films such as Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and World War Z, along with Megan Ellison (Zero Dark Thirty, The Master) of Annapurna. Executive producing are Paul Schwake and Dana Goldberg of Skydance.
The summer of 2015 is shaping up to be one of the biggest ever for tent pole event and genre pics at the box office. Terminator joins Star Wars Episode VII from director J.J. Abrams, Joss Whedon’s The Avengers 2, Assassin’s Creed with Michael Fassbender, Independence Day 2 from Roland Emmerich, Pixar’s Inside Out, and Johnny Depp’s return as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean 5, amongst others. Terminator may just need a digitally altered Arnold Schwarzenegger to stand out amongst that heavy hitting competition.
