In theory, 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate was supposed to be the sequel of fans’ dreams. After the misfires of Rise Of The Machines, Salvation, and Genisys, James Cameron finally returned to his own franchise as producer, teaming up with director Tim Miller to create a bona fide sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day – one bringing back Linda Hamilton as an older Sarah Connor, with Arnold Schwarzenegger on killer-robot duties, all while introducing a whole new cast of younger heroes. But despite solid reviews, Dark Fate suffered a… well, dark fate, failing to capture audiences at the box office. It underperformed, making just over $260 million, and remains the last big-screen outing for the franchise as of now.
But despite the film’s box-office struggles, Cameron remains positive about Dark Fate – particularly Gabriel Luna’s two-in-one, T-800-meets-T-1000 killer baddie, the Rev-9. “I think the Rev-9 was cool as shit,” he tells Empire. “Personally, I think that’s as good as anything that we did back then.” As for why the film failed to find an audience, Cameron places the blame at his own feet. “Our problem was not that the film didn’t work,” he explains. “The problem was, people didn’t show up. I’ve owned this to Tim Miller many times. I said, ‘I torpedoed that movie before we ever wrote a word or shot a foot of film.’”
The issue? Cameron says he started “getting high on my own supply” in creating a direct Terminator 2 sequel, leaning too hard into the return of Arnie and Sarah Connor. Today, he doubts it’s what audiences wanted. “We achieved our goal. We made a legit sequel to a movie where the people that were actually going to theatres at the time that movie came out are all either dead, retired, crippled, or have dementia,” he says. “It was a non-starter. There was nothing in the movie for a new audience.”
Even though he feels that “we miscalculated the whole thing” on Dark Fate, Cameron still ranks it among the best entries in the franchise. “I think the film’s cracking,” he says. “I still think mine are the best, but I put it in solid third.”
Read Empire’s major new James Cameron interview – talking the ongoing legacy of The Terminator and its sequels; the thematic preoccupations that have reverberated throughout his career; his changing relationship with the original film; and what the future holds for the franchise – in the November 2024 issue, on sale Thursday 26 September. Pre-order a copy online here.