Having been burned by three disappointing Terminator sequels in a row, fans should have tempered their expectations when it came to Dark Fate, even with James Cameron and Linda Hamilton making their long-awaited returns to the franchise. Ironically, most reviews reached the conclusion that it was the best installment since 1991, but the movie’s poor box office performance may have inadvertently hammered the final nail in the coffin for the long-running sci-fi series.
It was estimated that Dark Fate could end up losing over $100 million for Paramount, and now the figure has been revealed as an eye-watering $122.6 million. Despite strong critical reactions and the return of several of the franchise’s stalwarts, it just seems as though audiences simply aren’t interested in a series that started in 1984 and has spent the last three decades rebooting itself to repetitively mediocre results.
Genisys made over $400 million globally and still saw the initial plans for a trilogy abandoned, before Deadpool director Tim Miller stepped in to deliver the straight-up sequel to Judgment Day that everybody said that they wanted, but nobody really bothered to head out to the theater and see for themselves. If anything, the studio should shoulder a lot of the blame for giving us three Terminator movies in the space of ten years that all feature an entirely different cast and crew, with the obvious exception of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Not only that, but Salvation, Genisys and now Terminator: Dark Fate promised to be the launchpads for an entirely new trilogy of Terminator flicks before all of them fell at the first hurdle, and it was only a matter of time before the studio ran out of chances to keep throwing reboots together as soon as possible before people stopped caring entirely.
