James Cameron Reveals His Involvement In Terminator 5

Terminator is one of the greatest sci-fi horror films of all time and James Cameron is one of the most iconic names in the business. Unfortunately for him he does not own the rights to the Terminator Franchise and we have seen that franchise slowly degrade over time. Although Terminator Salvation was a step up from Terminator 3 it was by no means a return to the days of Terminator and Terminator 2.

James Cameron gave up the rights to Terminator just so he could get his film made. At the time James Cameron was not the toast of Hollywood but rather he was a truck driver with ambitions of greatness.

At Hero Complex in LA James Cameron talked about the Terminator franchise by first addressing the question of whether he had ever considered buying back the rights and breathing new life into the Terminator movie franchise. According to /Film he said quote;

I pay attention to [the new Terminator films] but I’m not terribly concerned about it one way or the other. I’ve had to let it go. There was a point in time where I debated going after the rights. Carolco Pictures, the company that produced Terminator 2, was failing and in bankruptcy and the rights were in play. I talked briefly to 20th Century Fox about it.

At a certain point, I think I was finishing Titanic at the time and I just felt as a filmmaker maybe I’ve gone beyond it. I really wasn’t that interested. I felt like I’d told the story I wanted to tell. I suppose I could have pursued it more aggressively and gone to the mat for it but I felt like I was laboring in someone else’s house in a sense because I had sold the rights very early on.

You will recall that a few years ago James Cameron almost had his shot to get the Terminator rights back and at the time rumors circulated that not only would James Cameron get the Terminator movie franchise rights he would also direct. Just how serious did things get? Well William Wisher who helped write the original Terminator movie with James Cameron and co-wrote Terminator actually wrote up a 24 page script treatment according to Deadline which accommodated the storyline of Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines and Terminator Salvation.

The most important aspect of William Wisher’s script is it accounted for all the earlier films fixing continuity issues the other Terminator films have introduced. Unfortunately for us William Wisher’s and James Cameron’s involvement in Terminator 5: Genesis was nothing but a pipe dream. Instead Annapurna pictures and Paramount are doing the movie with Alan Taylor directing. It would however seem that the filmmakers are very keen to involve Cameron since he also revealed at HeroComplex that the early rumors of his involvement are true. He said quote;

And then David Ellison took the project over from Megan and he and I met a couple times. And so Arnold is very much front and center in the new Terminator films. So I might have had some tiny effect on it — but obviously they had to make the right financial and creative decisions themselves so I’m not trying to take credit for the film that they’re making but that was my goal in being loosely attached to the film but I won’t have any credit on it.

I think it is quite interesting that they chose to involve James Cameron and will be curious to see if Terminator Genesis is the revival of the franchise or the final nail in the coffin. As a huge fan of the film franchise I am fascinated by the return of Arnold as a key character and think that the casting of  Emilia Clarke, Jason Clarke, Matt Smith is pretty solid. Are you excited for Terminator 5?