‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ director thought he made a good movie, admits he was wrong

From the outside looking in, everyone was fully expecting Terminator: Dark Fate to be the movie that restored the sci-fi action franchise to its former glories, and with very good reason.

Not only was Arnold Schwarzenegger back once again like he said he’d be, but Linda Hamilton reprised her iconic role as Sarah Connor for the first time in almost 30 years. Director Tim Miller knew how to craft an R-rated box office smash after spearheading Deadpool, while James Cameron’s involvement as producer and co-writer was the cherry on top of the icing on a cake over a metal endoskeleton.

In the end, despite scoring enthusiastic reviews that saw many naming it as the best Terminator since Judgement Day, Dark Fate tanked at the box office and ended up losing over $120 million. The consensus (which has been shared by the stars) is that audiences weren’t interested in the property anymore, while Miller admitted to the crowd at Comic-Con (per Deadline) that he was wrong to think he’d made a good film.

“Terminator’s an interesting movie to explore, but maybe we’ve explored it enough. 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 f*cking Eureka moments in a bad way because the movie tanked. 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.”

We’re almost certainly getting another live-action reboot sooner rather than later, but unless Cameron himself returns to direct, it’s going to be hard to generate much enthusiasm after three failed attempts in the space of a decade.