Science Fiction World

Now that his governing days are over, Arnold Schwarzenegger is set to return to the Terminator series of films that first launched him to international stardom. Deadline reports that Schwarzenegger is attached to a rights package being shopped around Hollywood that will possibly send him back into robotic apocalypse once more. It’s not clear whether the rights holders are aiming for a sequel, prequel or a complete relaunch.

Justin Lin has been signed on as director and the Terminator package would cost studios $25 million or more to pick up. Apparently Universal, Sony and Lionsgate are interested. Director McG was the last to tackle the Terminator franchise with Terminator Salvation in 2009.

Strangely, according to FirstShowing.net, in US copyright law, if you assign your rights to another entity, you get them back in 25 years. So original Terminator director James Cameron will end up back in control of the rights in 2018. Perhaps we’ll see a  Cameron directed Terminator  3D in 2018? Perhaps not though: Schwarzenegger seems to want to go back, but after Avatar (and the coming sequels) I can’t really see Cameron being enthusiastic enough.

It’s all a bit crazy really. It seems unlikely that robots would age, so Schwarzenegger's appearance in any sequels would have to be explained - and any explanation could be potentially very silly. We’ll have to wait and see how silly it all gets if the film makes it into production.

I was going to use the Terminator catch phrase “I’ll be back” in this article but decided against it.