It’s been more than 25 years since James Cameron was directly involved with an installment of the Terminator franchise he created, but the acclaimed filmmaker is reportedly returning to the sci-fi saga he kicked off with 1984’s The Terminator.
A new report indicates that Cameron plans to team with Deadpool director Tim Miller on a new movie set in the Terminator universe — after the rights to the franchise revert back to him in 2019. Miller is expected to direct the film, with Cameron serving a supervisory role on the project.
According to Deadline, Cameron is “godfathering” the Terminator movie along with Skydance, the studio responsible for the most recent installment of the series, Terminator Genisys. The development team is reportedly “bankrolling an exploratory effort that includes engaging some top-flight science fiction authors to find the movie creatively.”
Cameron famously (or perhaps infamously) sold the rights to the Terminator property to the original film’s producer, Gale Anne Hurd, with the stipulation that he would direct the film he’d written. The result was the acclaimed 1984 blockbuster that helped launch both Cameron’s career and that of its star, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Cameron returned to direct the even-more-successful 1991 sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day, but then declined to return for any of the subsequent sequels.
Cameron later seemed to warm to the franchise again with Genisys, praising the project and the work of director Alan Taylor — possibly due to the impending return of the copyright to his ownership in 2019.
It’s unknown whether the new film will be a sequel to Genisys, but Cameron seems certain not to direct the film due to his workload with the Avatar sequels, and Miller is reported to be the filmmaker in line for the job.
