‘The Terminator’ became a box office hit in 1984, kicking off James Cameron’s career, but looking back on it now, the director said that certain parts of the movie were ‘cringeworthy’ to him.
He told Empire, “I was just a punk starting out when I directed ‘The Terminator’. I think I was 29 at the time and it was my first directing gig.” While ‘Piranha II’ was technically his first director credit, Cameron noted, “‘Terminator’ was my first film and it’s near and dear for that reason.”
“I don’t think of it as some Holy Grail, that’s for sure,” he added. “I look at it now and there are parts of it that are pretty cringeworthy and parts of it that are like, ‘Yeah, we did pretty well for the resources we had available. Just the production value, you know? I don’t cringe on any of the dialogue, but I have a lower cringe factor than apparently a lot of people do around the dialogue that I write.”
The ‘Terminator’ franchise’s last installment, ‘Dark Fate,’ came out in 2019. Though it didn’t reach the same level of success as the early films. After the release, Cameron confirmed that he was working on rebooting the series,
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton have no plans to return for the reboot. “I’m done. I have nothing more to say,” Hamilton told Business Insider in early 2024.
“The story’s been told, and it’s been done to death. Why anybody would relaunch it is a mystery to me. But I know our Hollywood world is built on relaunches right now.”
Cameron shared last year that he had already started developing a script for the remake, but he hasn’t given any updates since then. He only shared, “I have no doubt that subsequent ‘Terminator’ films will not only be possible, but they’ll kick a**. But this is the moment where you jettison all the specific iconography.”
He added, “It’s more than a plan. That’s what we’re doing. That’s all I’ll say for right now.”
The director is currently focusing on his ‘Avatar’ series. A follow-up to 2022’s ‘The Way of Water’ is coming out next year.
