James Cameron might be all about the Avatar these days (with its sequel, Avatar: The Way Of Water earning plenty of cash at the box office), but that doesn't mean he's completely neglecting the other franchises he pulled from his dreams. And despite the extreme risks – including the box office flop of most recent effort, Terminator: Dark Fate, Cameron says he's considering another movie set in that world.
"If I were to do another Terminator film and maybe try to launch that franchise again, which is in discussion, but nothing has been decided, I would make it much more about the AI side of it than bad robots gone crazy," Cameron revealed on the SmartLess podcast hosted by Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett.
Of course, given his duties bringing Pandora and its inhabitants to life, he'd likely hand it over to another filmmaker, as he did with Terminator: Dark Fate's Tim Miller. And talking of the much-maligned latest offering, he got candid talking with Deadline about that movie's issues.
"I think the problem, and I’m going to wear this one, is that I refused to do it without Arnold [Schwarzenegger]," he explained. Cameron worked on the film's story in addition to producing. "Tim didn’t want Arnold, but I said, 'Look, I don’t want that. Arnold and I have been friends for 40 years, and I could hear it, and it would go like this: 'Jim, I can’t believe you’re making a Terminator movie without me.' It just didn’t mean that much to me to do it, but I said, 'If you guys could see your way clear to bringing Arnold back and then, you know, I’d be happy to be involved.''
And then Tim wanted Linda. I think what happened is I think the movie could have survived having Linda in it, I think it could have survived having Arnold in it, but when you put Linda and Arnold in it and then, you know, she’s 60-something, he’s 70-something, all of a sudden it wasn’t your Terminator movie, it wasn’t even your dad’s Terminator movie, it was your granddad’s Terminator movie. It was just our own myopia. We kind of got a little high on our own supply, and I think that’s the lesson there."
If all that has you eager to hear more from the man himself, our recent Empire VIP conversation with James Francis Cameron is now up as a podcast, which you can hear via the pod app of your choice.
And so you don't miss out on future exclusive, exciting events such as that, go to empireonline.com/vip for more information and to sign up.
