The last four Terminator movies were written with back-to-back sequels in mind, and Terminator Genisys was conceived as the first installment of a new trilogy.
Co-writer of Terminator Genisys Patrick Lussier recently spoke to The Production Meeting Podcast about the scrapped sequels for Genisys; revealing more of what we could have expected from those movies had they continued and the movie resonated with the wider audience.
“We wrote the script for like two drafts of the next one; the direct sequel and uh had an outline for the third one and what that would be. Answered all the questions that were presented in Genisys and brought everything back around and closed it all off… “
Patrick Lussier told PMP | Transcribed by TheTerminatorFans.com
Patrick Lussier also noticed something familiar from the planned Genisys sequels which appeared in Terminator: Dark Fate… The C-5 plane sequence.
“… it was way huge but it had some… and there are some little things in Dark Fate that I noticed here and there. You know we had a C-5 sequence – and I see that in Dark Fate. I said ‘oh uh, I remember writing a thing with the C-5’.”
Patrick Lussier told PMP | Transcribed by TheTerminatorFans.com
Terminator: Dark Fate director Tim Miller, previously stated that the C-5 plane sequence was James Cameron’s idea…
“Jim’s way of getting things done is simple. He just told me, ‘Make the best C-5 plane crash sequence ever done in the history of filmmaking.’ “
Tim Miller told CinemaExpress
Tim then reiterated his statement (twice more) regarding James Cameron’s conception of the plane sequence a month later:
“Jim had a whole notebook full of um, action ideas, in a vacuum – you know, not tied to character; ‘I’d like to see, uh, a truck fall through the ice- an icy river and get swept away underneath,’ which kinda became the humvee underwater sequence there um, even though there’s no ice on the river. So, you know, he uh… we kind of, but we didn’t- it wasn’t quite as um, mercenary, I guess as that. There was an organic nature to that sort of a thing but some of ’em you back into, like the C-5 sequence; you kinda… they wanted… Jim wanted to do a big air battle C-5 sequence and I said: ‘Well, they just did that in the Mummy,’ and he said ‘Well, I didn’t see the Mummy.’ and I said ‘Therefore it doesn’t exist,’ [laughter].”
Tim Miller told TIFF | Transcribed by TheTerminatorFans.com
“Jim casually throws off shit like, “It’s got to be the biggest variable-G plane crash sequence ever put to film. I’ll see you later. I’ve got to go back to Avatar now.” That sort of shit happens [laughs].”
Tim Miller told Esquire
Patrick Lussier was then asked about the direction the Genisys sequels would have taken:
Obviously Genisys is a love letter to T2, and also the original, but were the sequels getting away from that and forging a new path?
The Production Meeting Podcast | Transcribed by TheTerminatorFans.com
“Yes, yeah, they were introducing new characters, the were- they dealt more with what happens, you know the sort of… the uh… how the future, and where SkyNet comes from and what that sort of type of time loop is – you know the Matt Smith character, that was all very- became uh, much more of a focus and uh, so, it it… they were probably a little trippier and and stood away from T2 a little more um, uh like started having their own identity um, you know there’s a- there’s sort of uh, an interesting escaping of fatalistic part of it um, you know, how it opened was very cool uh but you know they- that’s all. Who knows maybe one day they’ll release it as a comic book or something.”
Patrick Lussier told PMP | Transcribed by TheTerminatorFans.com
We aren’t so sure that fans want a new identity forged for the franchise, the reasoning as to why fans liked this franchise in the first place has not changed (The Terminator and T2: Judgment Day).
The franchise has failed to recapture the magic of the first two movies, and Genisys also failed to recapture that magic, resulting in Terminator: Dark Fate – a movie which suffered the same fate with audiences.
We do however believe fans of Genisys would love a comicbook resolve but that could be said of all the Terminator movies which didn’t get sequels.
Would you like to see a Terminator Genisys comic series?
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7 Comments
I am disgusted of myself as a fan because me among others hated Genysis but come Woke Fate and these sequels look like gold compared to the crap that Tim Shiller had planned …
I would have liked you to make another Terminator Genesis movie continuing the previous one, but you include other terminator models. I have seen the comic “Terminator2: Infinity” and also “Terminator Salvation: The final Battle” and “Robocop versus Terminator” seemed good to me. If they made a film where they fought the war of the future and pops took one of the hunterkillers drones, I find it interesting, keep in mind that humans could use exo-armor to fight machines, for example films like Elysium and Edge of Tomorrow.
Honestly, yes.
Genisys started badly, but found its feet by the end. I understand why it didn’t continue, but I have soft spots for it and wish it had. So I’d definitely love to know what happened next.
I like the idea of exploring Skynet and how it evolved through various efforts to try and win.
While I think it’s dangerous to literally give the A.I. a human form, I was very curious how the Matt Smith Skynet evolved from a program to something embodied. The idea that this was a “different” Skynet that has been chasing victory through doomed timelines, is pretty exciting.
With that said, while the idea is enticing, I don’t believe the two Genisys writers approached Terminator with enough intelligence or restraint – they went silly and they went hog wild. I have to believe the sequel ideas would have been outlandish and inappropriate.
Genisys was good in the beginning.
They should have made it R rated.
And they should have made it a sequel to Salvation, atleast a soft reboot instead of a hard. Removing the bits about judgement day happening in 1997 and the scenes with young Kyle. So that it atleast doesnt contradict Salvation and T3.
A lot of ums, hums, mums and numbs, into the trash bin of scripts you go.
that’s what I always wanted. to explore skynet in depth, and time travel.