As the Sabotage machine starts to grind into gear, some naked slivers of information about the upcoming Terminator: Genesis are starting to tumble out of the time displacement spheres. Arnold Schwarzenegger himself revealed some details about the shooting schedule, while elsewhere there's some fannish-sounding speculation - possibly based on solid intel - about the direction of the plot.
Let's start, as all things Terminator (apart from Salvation) must, with Arnold himself. Addressing his supporters from thearnoldfans.com at Ohio's Arnold Sports Festival, the once and future Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 had the following to say about the practical unfolding of Terminator: Genesis:
"We start filming in April and it will be a four-and-a-half month long shoot. Most of it will be done in New Orleans, with some filming in San Francisco and maybe a little in LA. The last Terminator was when I was Governor and so I couldn't be in that movie, but now I'm back again and they are very excited about having me in the film. [Producer] David Ellison has plenty of money to do it well, in partnership with Paramount Pictures who are going to release the movie through their distribution. It's going to come out on the July 4th weekend in 2015. The preparation is going well and the script is fantastic, so I'm really looking forward to it!"
Meanwhile, the diggers at Moviehole have mined some possible plot from "a reputable source"... who they admit isn't actually working on the film, so take this with some caution. There's a fair chunk of speculative fiction on the relevant page, but we'll just bulletpoint the key elements:
According to the source, the Genesis story bears comparison to Back To The Future 2, which you'll recall partly involves our heroes rushing ingeniously around and within the events of the first film.
- In this case we're talking about revisiting the original Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, but the film will also have a third time period in the future.
- The punks, the other Sarah Connors, the cops and Sarah's roommate Ginger will make reappearances from T1. From** T2** we're apparently looking at the scene where Todd and Jenelle fall foul of the T1000, amongst unspecified others. There will also be flashback scenes of the young Sarah and her parents.
- The reason for the revisiting is something to do with an alternate timeline, again recalling Back To The Future 2, as well as the recent Abrams Star Treks.
How much of that is remotely true is, of course, entirely unclear, but it's sounding reasonably plausible as a way to reboot without necessarily ignoring Terminator 3 and Terminator: Salvation.
If it does check out, we're now fascinated to see how the matches with the earlier films can be achieved with a much older Arnold and a different cast playing the key roles.
Back To The Future 2 came only four years after the original, meaning the principals (Elisabeth Shue notwithstanding) didn't look radically different. The famous Deep Space Nine episode Trials And Tribbleations had an entirely different crew trying to blend in on Kirk's Enterprise. But we don't really see how overlapping, intertwining timelines can work in Terminator: Genesis' case without some substantial re-mounting of the older films. Are we looking at a partial remake as well as a reboot?
We'll see... What we do know is that Thor: The Dark World's Alan Taylor is directing, working from a script by Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier, with Jason Clarke aboard as John Connor and Emilia Clarke (no relation) as Sarah Connor (some relation). Shooting, as Arnold said, starts soon for release next summer.
Sabotage is out in the UK on May 9.