James Cameron Says Future Terminator Movies Won’t Use Familiar Characters or Iconography

The Terminator is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and franchise creator James Cameron is teasing that for the series to stay relevant, it will need to grow beyond the classic characters and iconography. The Terminator kicked off a franchise that includes the superior sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and a vast array of sequels that vary in quality, but all fans tend to agree don’t match the first two films. The franchise iconography includes characters like John Connor, his mother, Sarah, and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator character. These have been vital parts of The Terminator franchise for 40 years, but James Cameron thinks that they need to change.

Speaking with Empire Magazine regarding The Terminator‘s 40th anniversary, Cameron teased the franchise’s future. Cameron had previously teased that he was working on a new Terminator project and is now offering more details on the film, specifically that this is the moment the franchise starts fresh without the iconography associated with it, including key characters like Schwarzenegger’s Terminator or the Connor family.

Just because those elements will be absent from the film, Cameron details how it could still be Terminator without them as he highlights the story conventions of the franchise are key, saying, “You’ve got powerless main characters, essentially, fighting for their lives, who get no support from existing power structures and have to circumvent them but somehow maintain a moral compass. And then you throw AI into the mix. Those principles are sound principles for storytelling today, right?” Cameron also highlights how important it is to keep the franchise relevant to a modern audience, and doing this will be best for the franchise. He said:

“This is the moment when you jettison everything that is specific to the last 40 years of
Terminator
, but you live by those principles. You get too inside it, and then you lose a new audience because the new audience care much less about that stuff than you think they do. That’s the danger, obviously, with
Avatar
as well, but I think we’ve proven that we have something for new audiences…So I have no doubt that subsequent
Terminator
films will not only be possible, but they’ll kick ass. But this is the moment where you jettison all the specific iconography.”

Terminator Needs to Embrace New Fans

Cameron’s approach to the Terminator franchise and willingness to explore new characters is refreshing in an age where modern IP legacy sequels bring back old cast members in the hope of appealing to audiences’ nostalgia instead of trying to expand the franchise. Cameron realizes that to keep the franchise relevant, it needs to evolve and adapt and try to court new fans, with older fans either deciding to embrace the new or jumping off but still having the original works to watch.

Cameron’s thesis can be put to the test with the two most recent Terminator entries, 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate and 2024’s Terminator Zero. Terminator: Dark Fate was a half-legacy sequel, a half-restart of the franchise. While it did try to move the series beyond the importance of the Connor family by establishing Dani Ramos as the new resistance lead, it still brought back Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor and Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator. Despite the movie being well received, it bombed at the box office because, after three subpart Terminator sequels before it, audiences didn’t seem to care.

In contrast, the anime Terminator Zero, which hit Netflix on August 29, 2024, very much feels in line with what Cameron wants the new Terminator movies to be. While it features the familiar setup of time travel, war between man and machine, and names like Skynet, it focuses on a new set of characters and explores new themes. While Terminator Zero ties the whole franchise’s different timelines together, it is also accessible to a new audience who might have never seen a Terminator movie. Terminator Zero was the perfect way to celebrate The Terminator‘s 40th anniversary and shows that the franchise can continue even without Arnold Schwarzenneger or any members of the Connor family. The Terminator franchise is more than just a small group of characters; it is the struggle between humanity and the looming threat of A.I. and the idea that one can change the future.

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