‘Terminator’ Sequels On Hold Indefinitely Despite Worldwide Box Office Success
Even thoughArnold Schwarzeneggerhas touted the iconic line “I’ll be back” in theTerminatorfranchise over and over again, it turns out that might not end up being true after this latest round of the sci-fi film series.
This past summer,Terminator: Genisysdidn’t do so hot at the domestic box office, and thefuture of the series was uncertain. But its performance in international markets,especially China, indicated that the franchise continuing might still be a possibility. However, a small mention of futureTerminatorsequelshas revealed Paramount Pictures has put any future Terminator sequels on hold indefinitely.
In a recent report about movie financiers atTHR(viaThe Playlist), there’s some talk aboutTerminator: Genisysstill losing money even after raking in $440 million worldwide. That’s a good chunk of change, but with a budget that came in at $155 million before marketing came into play, that made any profit a little difficult to obtain for Paramount Pictures and Skydance.
And it’s in that explanation that the trade says “the notion of aTerminatoruniverse is on hold indefinitely.” That doesn’t necessarily mean that the franchise is dead, but Paramount probably won’t be rushing into Terminator 6 or Terminator 7 anytime soon, despitepreviously setting release dates in 2017 and 2019.
However, that doesn’t mean we won’t see another attempt at aTerminatormovie come together. The rights to the franchise revert back toJames Cameronin 2019, and if Paramount wants to make the most out of the rights to the iconic title while they have them, it might be worth taking one more crack at a properTerminator. But if fans still have the bad taste in their mouth fromTerminator: Genisys, then they may not be all that interested.
At this point, it may be time to just let theTerminatorfranchise die. The track record for good sequels is reason enough to just let the franchise go away for awhile until James Cameron sells the rights to another studio and they decide to remake the first movie without Arnold Schwarzenegger involved at all. That kind of thing is probably inevitable, and it this point, I’d much rather see Schwarzenegger do something different anyway.
It’s a tough market out there right now, and it seems that sequels may become a little less abundant, even when the overseas numbers indicate success.Pacific Rim 2was just taken off the 2017 release calendarat Universal even though the studio is still reportedly dedicated to making it happen at some point. Maybe Paramount will end up supporting the Terminator franchise just the same.
Anyone out there disappointed by this news?
