James Cameron Wants a New ‘Terminator,’ But Reality Is Making It Difficult

Long before he created floating mountains and giant blue people, James Cameron created a world that has since become a reality. With The Terminator and its sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Cameron envisioned a world where artificial intelligence became so powerful, it fought back against humanity. Now, over 40 years later, that vision has become all too possible, and that’s stopped the director from definitively saying, “I’ll be back.â€

Last year, James Cameron mentioned that he was working on something in the Terminator franchise but that it was “totally classified.â€

“I don’t want to have to send out a potentially dangerous robotic agent if you were to talk about it, even retroactively,†he joked. Well, this week, io9 spoke to Cameron for his new film, Avatar: Fire and Ash, and asked if he could provide any updates. Which he did.

“I’ll have some time to write and to consider my next projects and the order in which I do them and so on once we’re done with the marketing on this in a month or so,†Cameron said. “I’ve got a stack of notes this thick [holds fingers about three inches apart], which is how I start all my scripts, on what I want to do with a new Terminator film. I’m going to pour myself into that as a writer.â€

“It’s difficult. I have to tell you,†he continued. “Science fiction has caught up and is actually overwhelming us at this point. We’re living in a science fiction world, and we’re literally having to deal with problems that in the past only existed in science fiction books and movies. Now we’re living it for real. I’ll never be as prescient as I was back in 1984 of imagining this one because I don’t think anybody knows what’s going to be happening a year or two years from now. But I at least want to future-proof myself by being a couple years out.â€

Once Avatar: Fire and Ash is out in the world, Cameron has a few other projects that he is considering. A film about the atomic bombs during World War II is one. An adaptation of a book called The Devils is another. And he’s got two more Avatar sequels looming as well. So whether or not he finds that hook to “future-proof†himself to make a new Terminator, we’ll have to see. But he is definitely still thinking about it. And a future version of himself probably knows if it happened or not.

Avatar: Fire and Ash opens December 19, and we’ll have much more from Cameron and others soon.

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