By Rumours have been lingering for a while about Fast Five director Justin Lin’s involvement with a fifth entry in the Terminator series, which is now owned by Annapurna Productions and the excellent Megan Ellison. Those rumours seem to have been pretty much on the money if Lin’s recent interview with The Playlist is anything to go by, where he says that Terminator is “something [he’s] been having a lot of fun with” and that he has had informal talks with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is supposedly set to return to the franchise (not counting the CGI cameo at the end of Salvation), and James Cameron, despite him not officially being involved with the movie.
Since we have to accept that the Terminator series is unlikely to ever attract talent in Cameron’s league again, Justin Lin seems a pretty good bet. Anyone would be a step up from Salvation‘s McG, that’s for sure, but Lin has shown that he can work his way around an action sequence with respectable competence from his work on Fast Five. Although he has pulled out of directing a Highlander reboot, a sixth Fast & Furious is still on his schedule, so any Terminator project is likely to be a long way off. Will Ellison and Lin be able to get a troubled property back on its feet? Hopefully they’ll take a cue from the excellent Sarah Connor Chronicles TV series by taking the new movie back to the ‘present day’ and giving it a touch more depth than constant explosions. I’m looking forward to seeing how this one pans out – insert gag here about Terminator being back, or something.
[The Playlist, via Total Film]