It’s been a while since we witnessed the last big screen adventure from the Terminator franchise, in 2009 Christian Bale and Sam Worthington starred in ‘Terminator: Salvation’, directed by McG in what was ultimately a disappointing attempt to inject new life and a new direction for the series to take, the start of a possible new trilogy which we will now never see.Following the release of ‘Salvation’ the franchise was bogged down by both legal and financial issues however those appear to have been worked through at this point. It has now been reported that Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier have been hired to write a fifth Terminator film for the franchise to move forward.
Laeta Kalogridis has previously written screenplays for ‘Shutter Island’, both the failed ‘Birds of Prey’ and ‘Bionic Woman’ TV series, and interestingly is attached to the James Cameron driven project Battle Angel, and was a producer on ‘Avatar’. Patrick Lussier is slightly more of an unknown quantity having written and directed ‘Drive Angry’ as well as the B grade horror ‘Dracula 2000’.
No details on where the new film might take things, maybe they’ll pick up where ‘Salvation’ left off, maybe they’ll return to the earlier style Terminator films and set it during modern day with some time travel thrown in for good fun.
Overall though the last two films have been a little lacklustre, for what it’s worth on rotten tomatoes ‘Terminator Salvation’ rates 33% from critics and 70% from audiences while ‘Terminator 3’ gets 70% from critics and 41% from audiences. Essentially it’s been a while since a Terminator film has really knocked out an experience akin to either of the first two instalments, so the pressure is on slightly in that respect.
Let us know what you think about a new Terminator film, excited or would you prefer a reboot at this point? In a post-matrix, and superhero heavy cinematic world are we reaching a point where the idea of a war between humanity and machines is getting a little stale? Maybe the large gap between ‘Salvation’ and the new film will be long enough to serve as a good relaunch point.
