Terminator: Dark Fate director Tim Miller was featured on a “Directors on Directing” panel at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con (hosted by Miller’s good friend Steve Weintraub ‘Frosty’ of Collider) when the subject of Terminator arose, leading the director to acknowledge his failings with the sixth installment in the legendary sci-fi franchise.
Miller was asked about the future of the franchise and the potential for a Blumhouse-esque Terminator movie.
Miller stated:
“I don’t like your question, Steve. Terminator’s an interesting movie to explore, but maybe we’ve explored it enough,”
Deadline reported
The director then went on to explain the moment he realized that Dark Fate had failed to live up to expectations…
“I went in with the rock hard nerd belief that if I made a good movie that I wanted to see, it would do well. And I was wrong. It was one of those fucking Eureka moments in a bad way because the movie tanked.”
Tim Miller
Collider’s Frosty disagreed with his friend, stating that:
“It didn’t tank, it made $300 million.”
Collider
Clearly Mr. Miller’s career progress following Dark Fate (or lack thereof) is still a sore point, as Miller responded:
“Then why aren’t people returning my phone calls?”
Tim Miller
There are differing opinions (within the fanbase and beyond) on exactly why Dark Fate bombed with audiences, but many feel that the biggest issues arose from the mistreatment of John Connor.
A low Budget Terminator Movie Could Be Successful
With the majority of the Terminator fanbase (including this website) calling out for years for a lower budget, more story-centric Terminator movie; it’s sadly a little too late in the day for Miller to be using some favorable buzzwords but, hey… all PR is good PR.
Tim Miller said:
“I think if you make a lower cost Terminator movie, a good director and movie star could make it great. It could be made with sock puppets and it could be awesome, I’d like to do a Terminator CG.”
Tim Miller at San Diego Comic-Con 2022
“Terminator CG“? also a little late to the Terminator anime ball game, – though Tim’s always got Love Death + Robots should he decide to purchase a license for use with the Terminator franchise in future.
What do you think about Tim Miller’s ‘mea culpa’ moment?
Leave a comment…
10 Comments
“Then why aren’t people returning my phone calls?”
Easy: you turned the Terminator into a fucking drapery seller and totally alienated the fan base with the lowest grossing sequel of the franchise.
Hell is not enough for Tim Miller.
At least he’s owning it. It took him years, but he finally realizes he screwed the whole thing up. That’s the problem with some of these directors… they make movies THEY want to see instead of giving fans what WE want to see. Aren’t WE the ones who purchase a movie ticket? Purchase DVDs? Merchandise? Etc. So why not give the fans what they want?! Especially after T3, Salvation, Genesys… all of these movies were either okay (very mediocre) or complete trash. Dark Fate was that movie that was supposed to bring it back to the origins and instead ends up being a combination of all those three movies sprinkled with terrible ideas from Tim Miller. Kill John Connor, seriously, wtf, man… garbage. As far as the Connor story goes, it is done. It is ruined. The only thing I would be interested in seeing are stand alone films that could focus on Kyle Reese or resistance fighters. However, that has to be future war (won’t be low budget). A low budget film focused on story and character development is exactly what Dark Fate should have been. T3-T5 were crap and as a fan it hurt to see how bad the writing and direction were. Dark Fate hurt the most because it was such a missed opportunity. Rant over. Everytime Miller rears his head and talks Terminator it triggers me lol…
I hope my comment gets posted lol but, Look .
It’s like there were Some in charge who said, let’s make a terrible Terminator film.
( dialog aside ) The execution of John Conner in less then 5 minutes ? You give the fan’s 10 minutes of Sarah & John together peacefully as a reward to the Terminator 2 fans, T2 was a journey we have all lived and loved , we experienced that story with those characters we won when they won against Skynet in T2 .. and the first 5 minutes of what good lure was achieved from T2 was disregarded in Dark fate.
The execution with simplicity of Dark Fates story, Dani Ramos is now the leader of the resistance, this has to be earnt then accepted by the audience. Had her character been present while John was terminated perhaps fans willingness to embrace a desire for her to carry on John’s leadership would be acceptable.
There was a one off chance to give the fan’s this supposed Terminator 3 , and all sequels past T2 seem to fall flat in delivering a sub-par installment.
Only when a single director, a single script writer is giving complete control from A – to – Z with no studio engagement, rearrangement , no interference in the editing room ect, will a excellent Terminator film come to fruition.
He obviously doesn’t understand it yet.
it is perfectly fine to make a film that you would like to see. It is also necessary in the creative process. The question is “why would he want to see something like that and why should it be any different when he is already making something different?”!!
I don’t want a war from the future. I don’t want to see my wet dreams on screen. A quality r rated movie would be enough for me. It can be with a lower budget, as demonstrated by Joker, for example, and now it awaits Predator and Alien series – schizoid brutal sci-fi survival. Definitely the last thing I need to see is one cyborg beating another in the head with a big stick and doing five meter jumps 😀
I completely understand that it is difficult to do something like Cameron did – draw artworks at night, rehearse what the actors have to go through in the morning and shoot again until night. But when one compares the fight of two terminators in the second (brutal, believable, builds tension) and then in the last one (where the choreography looks like a video from Starcraft), its better to be stopped.
btw: but Miller can rest easy. Much worse than the direction was the script and the work of those who were involved in the production.
As far as the “Dark Fate” movie as a Whole, I’m torn in my opinion of it. I have my likes and dislikes about it. I didn’t Love some of parts of the film with what it did with the story, but Loved a lot of the action . Story wise, everything seemed so Give and Take . YES. We got Sarah Connor back, but we seemed to have “had” to lose John for this to happen. YES. We had visual glimpses into the future war, but it was “changed” in order to introduce a new character, “Grace”. YES. We still had the threat of an ever expanding technological dark presence, but they had to change it from Skynet to something unfamiliar, which helped to weaken the plot. You can only do so much to a story before it becomes something else. In my opinion, this is what happened to this movie. Even though the Action was exciting and on point, the Heart of the story of the Terminator just was no longer present because of the many changes in the script. There is a tremendous amount of what the hardcore fans are expected to just jettison out the window with this movie. If you are a hardcore fan, you feel “cheated” very early in. Then you’re kind of just sitting there arms crossed seeing if the rest of the film will make up for your loses. Tim Miller Had to know this with the script, but regretfully took the gamble that it wouldn’t be ‘that bad’. I truly believe John Connor was the one element that the fans just were Not willing to leave behind, let alone be altered into someone else. Mixed feelings about the film aside, I feel that ultimately Dark Fate has hurt things with the franchise. It will take A lot of patching up of things to get the fanbase back strong, and interested again.
With David Ellison & Dana Goldberg the producers & the users of Brett Azer the younger version of Arnold From T5 & T6 who are the opposites of Gore Verbinski’s director Pirates of the Carribean trilogy and the user James Norrington & Weatherby Swann. Even James Cameron as the producer too from T2 & T6 but not just Gore Verbinski Kevin Flynn the user of Clu from Tron 1 & 2 & Gore Verbinski.
Even Sam Raimi the is kinda like the opposite version of Gore Verbinski between Spider-man 2 & 3 that don’t make any sense either same thing he did Evil Dead when he exclusively produced 1981 & Ash Vs Evil Dead why not instead Dead By Dawn & Army of Darkness instead of Remake & Evil Dead Rise? Especially Bruce Campbell he co-produce 2
& 3 instead Remake & Evil Dead Rise he exclusively produce it that doesn’t make sense either. That goes for some of the rest of the others too like George Lucas who exclusive produced Star Wars 4-6 not 7-9 and directing episode 4 not Obiwan tv series, Jerry Bruckheimer produce 1-5 or 6, George Miller Mad Max 2-4, Christopher Nolan The Dark Knight trilogy. Their all bunch unsenseable brainless scarecrow idiot movie makers who are the opposite versions of Kevin Flynn from Tron 1 & 2 , Ricky Ricardo from The Cable Guy, the late Jim Henson The Muppet creator & the director & producer Steven Spielberg.
And the version of David Riker the director of The Girl 2012,writer of Sleep Dealer, and the user of Luis Pena Fernado. Even James Cameron who produced 2 Terminator movies is also the opposite of David Riker too.
Je pense qu’il est conscient de ce qu’il a fait mais le mal est fait ! -_- Comment je peu croire que mettre autant d’argent dans un film pour des scènes d’actions qui se suffisent à elle-même dans le genre horreur comme le premier plutôt que de ne pas miser sur ce qu’il ya de plus important à savoir l’écriture l’avancement de l’histoire et le développement de l’IA et des personnages ! Cameron avait mis du temps pour réaliser et posé les bases et l’idée. Pourquoi nous avons plus les racines du mal des 2 chef-d’œuvre ? Pourtant pour l’époque il n ‘y avait pas autant de technologie comme aujourd’hui mais plutôt des marionnettes comme il le dit si bien des chausettes et pas de CGI qui tue le réalisme ! La base d’un robot et d’une menace qui pèse sur l’humanité et les hommes sont leur racines leur terre leur âme! ils devraient regardé en arrière et dire ou es ce que la direction n’a plus été prise sur le genre horreur science et humanité comme dans la vraie vie avec la 5G le téléphone l’ordinateur ! Maintenant ramener moi James Cameron avec ces vielles marionnettes sa caméra le studio de Stan Winston et faite un T7 dans le renouvau genre horreur film d’horreur intensif scène d’action simple mais une histoire belle et horifique digne d’une menace robotique IA sur le genre humain.