We recently raised the issue of the ‘fatigue‘ of the Terminator franchise when we reported on the questionable Margot Robbie and John Cena news, – the idea being that previous ‘bad’ Terminator movies had tainted the amazing-ness of Dark Fate via well, guilt by association. The low-energy levels of the fanbase had been thrown around by the cast and crew of Terminator: Dark Fate (mostly Tim Miller), as the most core reasoning as to why they believed the sixth installment in the franchise had failed financially; thus making any potential sequel a risky business manoeuvre, and highly unlikely.
Terminator: Dark Fate‘s ‘Grace‘ Mackenzie Davis has previously broached the subject of the insanity of a seventh Terminator movie, when she spoke to NME last June.
Mackenzie said:
“I really loved the movie and I’m so proud of what we did, but there wasn’t a demand for it [at the box office] and to think that there’d be a demand for a seventh film is quite insane. You should just pay attention to what audiences want – and they want new things and I want new things.”
Mackenzie Davis to NME
When Mackenzie recently spoke to the Happy Sad Confused (MTV, Paramount ViacomCBS) Podcast, she enlarged upon her opinion of the situation, saying:
“As far as the box office and stuff… you know, it’s Terminator 6! Like, nobody saw the last three. I get it, it’s okay. I don’t think that means what we made was bad, but I understand that the audience appetite had been exhausted.
Mackenzie Davis to Happy Sad Confused Podcast
How much you attribute that to there being three women in the lead, I don’t know. I never really wanted to engage with that stuff because, uh, I can’t control it. I am a woman, and I really like the part, and I felt proud of what I did; so I couldn’t be like, ‘No one’s seen it because they’re sexist!’ It seemed like an easier answer for me to be like, ‘Alright, six is too much, now we know.’”
I’m pretty sure that I did in fact see the last three, so… hey Ma! I ain’t a nobody no more!
Listen, on a serious note – I don’t blame Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna or Diego Boneta (poor prematurely murdered Diego Reyes, he had so much life still to live!).
I don’t blame the stalwarts of the Terminator franchise; Arnold f*cking Schwarzenegger, or our beloved Linda Hamilton, either.
I’ll refer back to my review of Terminator: Dark Fate…
“Many of the problems with T:DF could easily be attributed to the studios rushing the movie into production – remember, James Cameron was touching up the script the night before the next day’s shoot; the production began without a script and (in some cases) the cast didn’t get a script until the day of shooting and the script was then whisked away. This would clearly have a huge impact on performances of the cast and crew.
Endo Morgan | TheTerminatorFans.com
Not to mention the sheer amount of writers and story credits – I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… too many cooks spoil the broth. The amalgamation of too many conflicting ideas and personalities – the late edits, the polishing, the studios adding their two (ten)cents for ease of marketing the movie to a wider audience and avoiding censure… these are all fairly understandable scenarios to explain deficiencies in the movie – my point? If the urgency had been removed by the studios… these problems wouldn’t exist.“
Another reason Terminator: Dark Fate doomed itself to failure… ? James Cameron and Tim Miller clashing…
Mackenzie Davis said:
“I mean, I- there’s creative conflicts sure, there are always going to be if you really give a shit about what you’re making, or else you just have somebody who’s sort of parroting, you know, the corporate interests, instead of trying to make some type of art within this very corporate machine.
Mackenzie Davis to Happy Sad Confused Podcast
Tim was an incredible director. Just so dedicated and devoted to making it the best thing it could be.”
The cast and crew may not have been eager to label the production as ‘troubled’ but it sure didn’t seem smooth to me, and no, it wasn’t the fact that it was the sixth Terminator movie.
That’s too easy.
*Click the video below for our opinion on ‘Franchise Fatigue’.
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