James Cameron may have spent the last few years of his career holed up developing those Avatar sequels he keeps promising are happening, but it looks like he’ll soon be going back to his roots. According to Deadline, Cameron will help shepherd in a reboot of The Terminator in 2019, with the help of Deadpool director Tim Miller.
The project is being called a “reboot and conclusion” of the Terminator franchise, which has been in dire straits since Cameron’s last film in the franchise, 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
Cameron will reportedly regain the rights to the franchise in 2019, the 35-year anniversary of the first film, which is why he’ll be involved in this film. Terminator Genisys producer David Ellison (who holds many Terminator rights after purchasing them from his sister, Annapurna pictures’ Megan Ellison) is said to be “bankrolling an exploratory effort that includes engaging some top-flight science fiction authors to find the movie creatively.”
There’s no word yet on when in the complicated film timeline this new movie will take place, though one could see the appeal for ignoring the three post-Judgment Day films and picking up where Cameron himself left off. Regardless, Deadline’s sources claim that the hope is that “Miller will direct whatever they come up with,” since Cameron himself is busy with those four aforementioned Avatar follow-ups.
We’ll have more news on this potentially exciting development as it arrives.
Originally published January 21, 2017. Updated April 13, 2018.
