After the financial failure of Dark Fate and a torrent of mixed reviews, the Terminator saga is picking up steam again. It is official ! Canadian James Cameron will direct and is already working on the scripts for the next film. However, he claims to have put writing on hold… And the advent and exponential development of AI has something to do with that.

The Terminator saga is considered an iconic science fiction franchise and has achieved cult status among moviegoers. James Cameron wrote and directed the first two films, The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), before leaving to other directors to take over through Terminator 6: Dark Fate.

According to his announcement at the Dell Technologies World conference that ended May 25, the Canadian director would once again be in the full writing phase of the sequel. Fans will be thrilled at the prospect of a reunion with the director’s acclaimed skills. While the Terminator 7 movie is still in the writing phase, we already know that the story may be influenced by the current rise of AI including ChatGPT and co.

A fiction inspired by reality?

According to a tweet from a Dell Technologies conference attendee, James Cameron began writing the script for the next film in the saga over three months ago. The filmmaker also announced that he would monitor the development of AI before proceeding with his work. We can therefore understand that he is waiting to assess the consequences of the new technology and the direction in which it will go. This little break might help him find material for this new episode.

AI has always been a constant in the franchise, most notably through Skynet. As a reminder, the film is about an intelligent and conscious system that has decided to rebel against humanity. Among other things, he is the actual antagonist of the film series, when the story focuses more on the killer robots he controls, the Terminators. But this time everything will be different. In fact, James Cameron hinted on last year’s Smartless podcast that he would focus more on the artificial intelligence system than the assassin cyborgs when writing Terminator 7:…I’m going to focus a lot more on AI than evil robots gone mad ‘ he had explained.

A sequel without the star of the series

Since the project is still in its infancy, it is already certain that Arnold Schwarzenegger will no longer be part of it. After the last film failed at the box office, the star retires. “The franchise isn’t over yet, but I’m done with it‘ he announced to the Hollywood Reporter. For the director, this could be an opportunity to surprise fans with another actor who will portray the leader of the human resistance against Skynet.

The changes will therefore be in place for this seventh film. We’ll probably know more soon, but we’ll probably have to wait a few more years for the release of the first pictures. Especially since Cameron still takes his time observing the advances in technology.