When Megan Ellison bought the rights to make a new Terminator movie she was obviously making gambles and working to create a landmark in cinema history. We have reported that Megan had initially had meetings with Arnold and series creator Jim Cameron about the next Terminator movie but until now we didn’t know that Megan Ellison more or less offered the Terminator franchise back on a plate to Jim by offering him involvement…
Cameron: I pay attention to [the upcoming Terminator film] but I’m not terribly concerned about it one-way or the other. I’ve let it go. There was a point in time where I debated going after the rights. Carolco Pictures was failing and in bankruptcy and the rights were in play. I talked briefly to 20th Century Fox about it. At a certain point, I think I was finishing Titanic at the time and I just felt as a filmmaker maybe I’ve gone beyond it. I really wasn’t that interested. I felt like I’d told the story I wanted to tell. I suppose I could have pursued it more aggressively and gone to the mat for it but I felt like I was laboring in someone else’s house to an extent because I had sold the rights very early on. Basically I went from being a truck driver to being a filmmaker and part of my dues was that I sold the rights to The Terminator in order to keep myself attached as a director. And the outcome was fine. The rest of my career really hinged on that. But I no longer had control of it. I thought to myself why don’t I just create my own new thing that I’ll have control over the IP.
So I let it go and in the act of letting it go, I now have to live with the consequences of that — which is I can’t get too emotionally involved. Now having said that — when Megan Ellison bought the rights [to The Terminator], she asked me if I wanted to be involved. I said ‘Look – I don’t mind standing behind the curtain and whispering some court advisory in the 13th century type thing.’ My goal in that was not to insinuate myself artistically but to try to make sure they stayed true to the Terminator character and the idea of Arnold – he’s a friend of mine and we’ve been through all the wars together — I wanted them to see the possibilities I saw for what they could do with his character. And then David Ellison took the project over from Megan and he and I met a couple times. Arnold is very much front and center in the new Terminator films. So I might have had some tiny effect on it — but obviously they had to make the right financial and creative decisions themselves so I’m not trying to take credit for the film that they’re making but that was my goal for being loosely attached to the film.
We believe Megan Ellison had full intention to let James Cameron reunite with his baby once again. TheTerminatorFans.com believe that she would have let him write, produce and direct on a decent salary. The reuniting of Cameron and Arnold would have been a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood and Megan Ellison would have known this.
Will James Cameron kick himself for this missed opportunity? We think he will as he says he has moved on but over the years he has expressed that he likes Terminator movies that he’s not involved with to do well- but just not that well…
We’ve said it lots of times before but maybe Jim just doesn’t have that tenacity to make a “Jim Cameron Terminator” movie anymore. Avatar just doesn’t have the guts or gusto that Terminator has, even Terminator Salvation was more interesting than Avatar. People just don’t connect with the smurf people as they have become known to the world.
He should have backed the Ellison’s. Avatar screams politics and the environment. The story of SkyNet touched upon the global issues of scientific/military advancement. The movie affected humans and had real issues at it’s heart no matter how flamboyant the plot material was… Avatar has no connection to anything real… how can we care about a race of people when they look faker than Arnold’s puppet head in T1.
Megan Ellison is still listed as a producer on the currently titled Terminator: Genesis but her production company Annapurna Pictures is no longer attached. Terminator : Genesis will be brought to us by Skydance Productions (owned by her brother David Ellison) and Paramount Pictures.
Source: J.C. quotes annotated by Collider from the LA Times Hero Complex Event Interview with James Cameron