Arnold Schwarzenegger is nothing if not a man of his word, and after first saying he’d be back in 1984, he’s certainly kept up his end of the bargain. The action icon has starred in four of the five Terminator sequels, after sitting out Salvation but technically making an appearance when his face was unconvincingly pasted onto Roland Kickinger, who at least fit the physical bill as an Austrian bodybuilder.
The actor was 37 years old the first time he played the iconic character, and the franchise has had to keep coming up with new ways to explain why the Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 now looks like an old human male when it’s supposed to be a highly efficient killing machine from the future, with Dark Fate even rechristening him as family man and traveling salesman Carl.
The sixth installment bombed hard at the box office despite the holy trinity of Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton and James Cameron being reunited for the first time in 35 years, and after three commercial disappointments in the space of a decade, nobody’s exactly going to be throwing themselves at the feet of Skydance Media begging for a chance to reboot a failing property that’s been suffering from the law of diminishing returns for almost 30 years.
However, insider Daniel Richtman has repeatedly been claiming that multiple Terminator projects are in development despite nothing having been officially announced yet, and he’s now reporting that Schwarzenegger is signed on for at least one of them, although he doesn’t offer any further details. Of course, diving headfirst into another reinvention less than eighteen months after Dark Fate lost $120 million is somewhere between recklessness and stupidity, and it would be fair to say that the franchise could do with a long break from our screens. That being said, when it does eventually return – because you just know it will – expect Arnie to be involved in some capacity.
