James Cameron Teases The Future Of The Terminator Movies

A couple weeks back we learned that in 2019 The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day director James Cameron will regain the rights to the franchise he started, and plans to "godfather" Terminator 6 with Deadpool helmer Tim Miller directing. In a new interview, the filmmaker teases how Terminator 6 might be relevant in today's world.

While speaking with The Daily Beast promoting his NatGeo documentary Atlantis Rising, James Cameron was asked about the declining quality of the Terminator franchise. The filmmaker's response seems to tease what we might expect from a sixth film:

It's really just stumbled along, trying to find its voice again. There's probably some degree to where it's lost relevance, you know? Maybe the things that made it good back then are kind of a yawn now. It's easy to remember fondly the things that kick off a franchise. It's hard to keep a franchise vigorous, and relevant. I haven't had my hand on the tiller since Terminator 2, and that was 1991. So what's that? Twenty-six years? But look, I think it's possible to tell a great Terminator story now, and it's relevant. We live in a digital age, and Terminator ultimately, if you can slow it down, is about our relationship with our own technology, and how our technology can reflect back to us—and in the movie, literally, in a human form that is a nemesis and a threat. But also in those movies, in the two that I did, it's about how we dehumanize ourselves. In a time when people are being absorbed by their virtual-social world, I mean, just look around. I always say: if Terminator was about the war between the humans and the machines, look around any restaurant or airport lounge and tell me the machines haven't won when every human you see is enslaved to their device. So could you make a relevant Terminator film now? Absolutely.

I think one of the most interesting ideas from Terminator: Genisys was that humanity didn't fight against Skynet invading our lives, we lined up around the block to be the first to have it in our hands and pockets. Unfortunately, that idea isn't really explored in the film. And while Cameron clearly hasn't had time to begin work on Terminator 6, I would bet that his pitch his something in the seeds of what he is teasing in this answer.

We still don't know much about what Cameron has planned for the future of the Terminator franchise. Will the new film be a reboot of some kind? Cameron publicly endorsed Terminator: Genisys, which was supposed to be the first chapter of a new trilogy. Despite having a good international box office, critical and audience reaction derailed the trilogy plans.