James Cameron Says Arnold Schwarzenegger Will Not Be in ‘Terminator 7:’ “I Want to Do New Stuff That People Aren’t Imagining”
With Avatar: Fire and Ash opening this weekend, James Cameron is preparing to tun his attention to his other juggernaut franchise: The Terminator. “Once the dust clears on Avatar in a couple of months, I’m going to really plunge into that,” Cameron tells THR. “There are a lot of narrative problems to solve. The biggest […]

With Avatar: Fire and Ash opening this weekend, James Cameron is preparing to tun his attention to his other juggernaut franchise: The Terminator.
“Once the dust clears on Avatar in a couple of months, I’m going to really plunge into that,” Cameron tells THR. “There are a lot of narrative problems to solve. The biggest is, how do I stay enough ahead of what’s really happening to make it science fiction?”
Cameron also reveals that the seventh Terminator film will not star Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“I can safely say he won’t be [in it],” Cameron notes. “It’s time for a new generation of characters. I insisted Arnold had to be involved in Terminator: Dark Fate, and it was a great finish to him playing the T-800.”
He continues, “There needs to be a broader interpretation of Terminator and the idea of a time war and super intelligence. I want to do new stuff that people aren’t imagining.”
Cameron adds, “The things that scare you the most are exactly the things you should be doing. Nobody should be operating artistically from a comfort zone.”
Schwarzenegger, of course, starred in Cameron’s 1984 original The Terminator as a cyborg assassin from the future that time travels to present-day Los Angeles on a deadly mission.
Cameron returned to helm 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day before passing off the reins as the franchise continued with 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, 2009’s Terminator Salvation (the only entry thus far without Schwarzenegger), 2015’s Terminator Genisys, and 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate.

James Cameron & Arnold Schwarzenegger on the set of ‘The Terminator’


