James Cameron Bound and Determined to Make a New Terminator Trilogy

I used to think that James Cameron's main obsession was getting to explore every last nook and cranny of the Titanic. It turns out, however, that his real obsession is fixing The Terminator franchise. Admittedly, the films have taken a steep drop off a cliff since he stopped directing them, but the overriding problem has always been that each successive film seems to be trying to fix everything that was wrong with the last one.

This is why news that Cameron wants to crank out a new Terminator trilogy is being met with loud, audible sighs. Cameron is down under right now shooting four more Avatar movies simultaneously and sat down with a reporter from News.com to talk about his plans to return to the Terminator series. Buckle up for this bumpy ride...

“The question is — has the franchise run its course or can it be freshened up?,” says Cameron. “Can it still have relevance now where so much of our world is catching up to what was science fiction in the first two films. We live in a world of predator drones and surveillance and big data and emergent AI (artificial intelligence).

“So I am in discussions with David Ellison, who is the current rights holder globally for the Terminator franchise and the rights in the US market revert to me under US copyright law in a year and a half so he and I are talking about what we can do. Right now we are leaning toward doing a three-film arc and reinventing it.

“We’ll put more meat on the bones if we get past the next couple of hurdles as and when we announce that.”

I get that the last three movies have been an utter disaster and that betting against James Cameron has cost many studios many billions of dollars, but this just seems like a fool's errand. Why take a giant step backwards in your career at this point, JC? Cameron's big problem is that he's an Ahab with three or four white whales he's hunting relentlessly. Sooner or later, the other shoe's got to drop, but like I said, smarter and richer people than I have doubted his abilities in the past and it has cost them dearly. If and when there's more to report on this, we'll bring it to you, but in the meantime, let us know in the comments section below if you want or need another Terminator trilogy.