New Terminator: Genisys Images Include First Look At J.K. Simmons’ Character

This summer is bursting with huge blockbuster releases. From Avengers: Age Of Ultron to Furious 7, they’re all vying to snag your hard-earned cash in exchange for admittance into an action-packed two hours of solid popcorn entertainment. Possibly the longest-running franchise out of them all is back in the shape of Terminator: Genisys. Thirty-one years after James Cameron’s original Terminator arrived on the scene as a dirty, low-budget exploitation actioner, Skydance Productions is ushering a new trilogy into multiplexes.

That first chapter arrives this June with Alan Taylor’s Genisys. A reboot prequel that resets the original timeline of Cameron’s movies, it will presumably (hopefully!) alter the events of the lacklustre two that followed: Rise Of The Machines and Salvation.

As part of the pre-release marketing magic, a slew of new images have arrived on the web from Empire’s huge Terminator-centric issue (via Coming Soon). Unfortunately though, the pics don’t expand or add much extra detail to the film’s rebooted plot, which finds Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) sent back to protect Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) only to find that she’s quite capable of handling cyborgs by herself. The magazine’s cover shot is a posed affair with Clarke and Schwarznegger, and the inside snaps are slightly different versions of pre-released images.

All except one, that is, which gives us a look at J.K. Simmons’ Detective O’Brien. In previous press releases, he’s been described as “a weary and alcoholic detective who has followed a bizarre case involving Sarah Connor and robots for more than three decades since 1984.” Weary or not, he’s remarkably calm while casually chatting with a T-800.

Co-starring Jason Clarke, Matt Smith, Byung-hun Lee and Dayo Okeniyi Terminator: Genisys will open in theaters in 2D, 3D, IMAX and IMAX 3D on July 1st.

The beginning of Terminator: Genisys, the first of three planned films that Paramount hopes will relaunch the beloved sci-fi franchise, is set in 2029, when the Future War is raging and a group of human rebels has the evil artificial-intelligence system Skynet on the ropes. John Connor (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ Jason Clarke) is the leader of the resistance, and Kyle Reese (Divergent‘s Jai Courtney) is his loyal soldier, raised in the ruins of post apocalyptic California. As in the original film, Connor sends Reese back to 1984 to save Connor’s mother, Sarah (Game of Thrones‘ Emilia Clarke), from a Terminator programmed to kill her so that she won’t ever give birth to John. But what Reese finds on the other side is nothing like he expected.