After the reboot Terminator: Genisys drastically underperformed this summer, it seems the franchise is once again on the backburner. David Ellison and Skydance Productions at one time had two sequels and a TV program in development for the series, THR reports, but now that universe is “on hold indefinitely.”
Ellison successfully helped fund World War Z, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, and True Grit, but tried to take a more creative role in Terminator. While his vision of a full universe of products was supported by Paramount, THR says he “wasn’t listening to anybody” when it came to actually developing it, which ultimately led to the failure of the reboot.
If you heard our review for Terminator: Genisys, you know we at Podcast Unlimited were not looking forward to seeing the next installment. The summer of 2015 was the Year of the franchise reboots. We had three series take three dramatically different approaches to their sequels in Jurassic World, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Genisys. The first two succeeded, with the former being the highest grossing film of the year. Terminator used a hybrid approach, trying to both reboot and incorporate the original film at the same time, and not surprisingly, failed at both. It appears that complete overhaul of the script and a completely new cast will be needed to salvage this franchise. In other words, the trilogy concept is terminated, and an entire reboot is in order.