Until now, no single actor has played the Terminator franchise’s John Connor more than once. Edward Furlong originated the role in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, but the lofty likes of Christian Bale, Jason Clarke, and Nick Stahl stepped into the role in the franchise’s subsequent films. At the San Diego Comic Con, producer James Cameron has revealed that Tim Miller’s upcoming Terminator: Dark Fate will come full circle by reuniting Furlong with Linda Hamilton, who we already knew was reprising her role of Sarah Connor. Does this mean Danny Cooksey is also coming back? One can only dream.
This news gives even more weight to Miller’s recent comments about Dark Fate being a direct sequel to T2. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, he said the film will deal directly with Sarah’s destruction of Cyberdyne Systems. “I honestly believe this would be the best version of the movie after the second one,” Miller said.
He added:
“The first two movies really deal with time as a loop, what’s happening is the same thing that happened before and everybody is fighting to ensure that happens again. And Jim [Cameron] had this lucky break that he only broke that rule at the end of Terminator 2 when Sarah destroys Cyberdyne, it’s the first thing that happened that hadn’t happened before, and so it was going to change the future—but no one knew how. And I don’t think the movies that came after it really explored that in a clean way like I believe we are, with true consequences, and it makes perfect sense for Sarah to be the one to face those consequences since they were her choices to begin with.”
Miller also confirmed that the film won’t cop out with a PG-13 rating. “The DNA of Terminator is an R-rated, fucking movie,” Miller said, which makes sense considering his history with the foul-mouthed Deadpool franchise.
The panel also featured some serious Terminator: Genisys shade, with producer David Ellison grimacing at the film and Cameron declaring that “there’s no Sarah except Linda Hamilton.” Sorry, Emilia Clarke!
Terminator: Dark Fate opens on November 1.