Terminator Salvation was one of my most anticipated films of the year. Unfortunately, it did not live up to the hype for myself and many other Terminator fans, let alone the critics who tore it apart in the plethora of negative reviews found online and in print everywhere.
While the movie is still just opening in many of the foreign markets, its financial performance in theaters is a clear disappointment for director McG and the studio. I wonder if they’re still considering forming a trilogy out of it…
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The movie opened on May 21st in North America to bring in around $42.5 million, significantly less than its monthly competitors in Star Trek, Up and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. A big factor in this is the fact that it opened on the date as Night of the Museum 2 which devoured the family segment of the moviegoers that weekend and ended up being the number one film, beating out the fourth Terminator installment.
That being said, I’m sure the awful reviews of the film didn’t help it much either. On Rotten Tomatoes, Terminator Salvation is sitting at 34% and as of today, Terminator Salvation has only brought in around $120 million worldwide while its production budget was $200. It’ll still bring in more with its foreign releases but its near done in its key markets with new films opening every week taking the viewers away.
For instance, this weekend we had Up and Drag Me to Hell open to fantastic reviews and positive fan reception and next weekend we have a pair of new comedies, so I can’t see many people going to see T4 now with all the other options and Star Trek still traveling at warp speed.
Is the moral of the story that Terminator needs Arnold Schwarzenegger as the lead? Many fans thought that leading up to Salvation and it seems the Studio now thinks that too with their most recent act of desperation to bring in more fans to see the flick. The latest TV spot for the movie reveals one of the surprise treats of the movie that wasn’t really a big surprise for those following updates for the movie online. That surprise is a cameo by Arnold, digitally added to the classic T-800 unit for a short scene in the film.
I guess its no longer a spoiler anymore since it is in the TV commercials – Check it out for yourself:
Don’t be fooled by this – What you see in the trailer is pretty much all the screen time he gets in the movie.
It’s too bad this film wasn’t better. It looked polished and finished unlike Wolverine but there was so little to it and none of the interesting plots were explored. Instead, a bunch of set pieces and action sequences were just thrown together with big special effects and references here and there to try and tie it in with the prior films.
If there’s another one, I hope we get a big improvement.
Can Christian Bale truly sell a movie on his own like Arnold could? What do you think of the TV spot showing off Arnold and the idea of another Terminator movie?
Sources: Box Office Mojo, Trailer Addict
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91 Comments
@Joshi
I’m always happy to read another’s opinions and ideas, but I must clarify two things: First, it doesn’t matter if Skynet knew that Kyle would be John’s father; it would have known (or, certainly, been able to discover)that Kyle was/is/will be one of Connor’s most trusted soldiers and associates, a prime candidate for termination. In the current continuity of this film, Skynet DOES know of Reese…BEFORE it sends back the T-800 (I can say this b/c each film tweaks the timeline just a bit)…This film also establishes the importance of John, himself, since he’s just become the new, though already very well-known, leader of the Resistance. Second, temporal memory HAS to make sense (at least, some sense) for any of the occurences in this film series to work, because the entire story is predicated on three extremely important details: John’s legend and authority, Skynet’s paranoia, and time travel (with accompanying paradoxes, alternate realities, etc.). As for Skynet being sadistic, I did not say it was laughing at the humans’ suffering; I said it was desperate to protect itself. A very logical way to defeat such an emotional, illogical creature would SEEM to be breaking his spirit–tricking the Resistance, using their own hope against them. It’s the old military tactic: Make your enemy THINK he’s lost, and he has. I look forward to further discourse
The Batman Animated series was great and Kevin Conroy is the voice of Batman no one can do better. However, the show isn’t the best interpretation of the character for me because at the end of the day it was still a kids show. They went as dark as they could, but while entertaining and giving a nice doese of Batman it never felt like Batman.
@ Andrew
I’m happy to discuss this if we stay civil. Happily, I’ve had very little uncivil discussions with people here on Screenrant
First of all, again, for Skynet to have known how important Reese was to Conner, they’d have had to have had some idea of what the future held. At the time of Salvation, Reese was nothing more than a teenage kid who had very little experience in the resistance and who wasn’t even part of Conner’s inner circle until the end of the film, after they’d targeted him. At this point, he’s unimportant and as far as the machines should know, of little consequence. Remember, Reese was number one on their kill list, followed by Conner. They must have had a really huge reason as to why they’d want Reese, above all others, dead and the only one I can think of is that they know he’s the father of Conner, but I still can’t get my head around how they know this. There is no clear indication that they have as much insight into the future as Conner. By all rights, they shouldn’t know that Reese is Conner’s father, nor should they know of his importance.
And the temporal memory thing isn’t needed at all for the other movies, they went after Sarah and John in the other movies because in their time, John was about to win the war against the machines and they figured killing them would help (although they actually fell into the Macbeth trap in the first movie).
And as for the “breaking their spirit” thing, they’d have done that easily by killing off both Reese and Conner when they could. Conner especially since that would break the spirit of everyone who believed he was their Saviour. But as for Reese, they didn’t actually need him alive to convince Conner to go get him. Conner, when deciding to go rescue the prisoners, had no idea whether Reese was alive or dead. Had the machines killed Reese as soon as they had him, Conner would have still gone, unknowing, to get him, and may have met his doom as well.
@Daniel F
Remember, before Batman Begins, the Batman Animated series was the best we had (and it was damned good at that), and I still contend that Mark Hamill is one of the best Jokers out there (better than Ledger… I don’t know).
If you haven’t seen it, I suggest you try to get your hands on a copy of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.
And I would also contend that Kevin Conroy is an amazing Batman, it was great hearing him in Gotham Knight.
Yeah, “Batman: Mask of the Phantasm” was freaking amazing.
Joshi I agree before Begins and TDK it was the best we had. Mark Hamil had the perfect voice for the Joker. I won’t say he was better or worse than Ledge because Ledger had a lot more freedom and it’s impossible to say. Ledgers Joker was better written, but it’s not fair because TDK isn’t a children cartoon. Don’t get me wrong I loved and still love the animated series. I have all the seasons on DVD as well as all the movies. I even have Batman Beyond and all the Justice League seasons.
Forgot to add while it was awesome to hear Kevin’s voice in Gotham Knights I thought the DVD was awful.
I had a theory for the reason why Terminator Salvation failed at the box office. I theorized it’s because of the times that we live in. With the economic crisis and all, people just don’t want to go to a film about a post apocalyptic world that is ruled by machines hunting humanity to extinction. People would rather family friendly films that offer optimism and safe predictable narratives. My theory seems to have some new information to support it. The international box office report has come in and Terminator Salvation is a hit over seas. It claimed the number on spot grossing $67.5 million which brings the international total to $101.6 million. It has almost made more over seas than in America in just a week of release. Terminator Salvation beat out Terminator 3’s opening international gross by 20%. Salvation even beat out Night At The Museum 2 which was in the number 2 spot with a total of $26.7 million. This indicates that internationally, people prefer a darker film to a family friendly film. Had Terminator Salvation come out ten years ago it perhaps would have been much more successful. Here is a link that discusses Terminator Salvation’s international success…
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/world/news/e3i0bc78baf8235f8b45a85761d351697f2
Let’s face it Skynet is reading Screen Rant that’s how he knows who Reese is and his importance.
The Screen Rant achives !!! That’s how it knows!!!
O ma gawd,,,,, what have we done!!!!!
@Joshi
Actually, you make some very good points, and I understand them as well thought-out, logical, and clear. I think we simply will have to agree to disagree about the movie, but yes, about ScreenRant, I too am happy that civility is the norm.
@Everyone commenting on Batman
I am curious how this train of comments became “Batman Lite”…heh. For my part, I loved “Batman: The Animated Series” quite a bit, though I have enjoyed, to varying degrees, the other Batman series, as well. I, however, DID love “Gotham Knight” and “The Dark Knight” (Mark Hamill was, indeed, an excellent Joker, as was Kevin Conroy a superb Batman, but Heath Ledger and Christian Bale did wonderful jobs in their respective roles too).
“I am curious how this train of comments became “Batman Lite”…”
I think people started comparing Bale’s gravelly Conner voice to his super gravelly Batman voice and comparisons were made to Conroy.
Ah Joshi, I think it can be traced to Daniel F’s constant defending of Bale’s awesome voice, in conjunction with his remarkable acting skills, amazing character emotions, on set calm demeanor, bad-ass film career, overall hygiene, and he’s just the greatest guy in the world damn it point of view,,,
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Yep that’s the focal point of the time line disturbance…
Gah, of course, I wasn’t thinking 4th dimensionally.
My earlier comment was deleted so I’ll just say this. The people here were having a nice discussion and there was no fighting 790 and you had to come on and start personally attacking me out of no where. What’s your problem? You can’t even let people here have a peaceful chat?
Daniel you forgot to say “were done professionally.”
Lighten up sheesh,,,
I’ll try lightening up if you try being a decent human who doesn’t go around personally attacking people for no reason. Is that way you see things? You personally attack people and talk trash for months and then when that person has had enough and says something about it you just tell them to lighten up huh. Wow just wow.
Talk trash about you for months ??? Really,,,???
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I will admit that ribbing you about Bale was wrong. sorry about that but I don’t recall talking trash about you…
Daniel F and 790, I want you to kiss and make up. NOW!
Daniel, put down the knife…790, put down the gun…Daniel, put down the bazooka…790, put down the nuclear bonb!
LOL, I don’t have any problems with Daniel even though he hates me.
I do indeed hate you, but that’s because you talk trash every chance you get, and because I your political views litterally make me sick to my stomach. Mostly it’s the way you treat me. I may disagree with people and some times piss people off with my opinions, but I try to avoid personal attacks and you seem to enjoy them. This was one of the most civil posts this site has up currently and you just couldn’t resist the chance to launch a personal attack on me despite no one talking trash about you or anything for that matter for like 4 pages of posts. That’s why I hate you.
This thread is still civil, if you want to talk about Batman cartoons that’s cool,,, I was simply answering a question Andrew asked when this thread changed into Batman lite,,,
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If you consider that a personal attack that’s your point of view. I didn’t mean it that way,,,
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My political views made you sick to your stomach ? LOL!
I’d love to get into that with you maybe on another thread on another day,,,
First of all his question had already been answered before you and second you did not simply answer his question you made personal references to me there were beyond a simple answer.
“Ah Joshi, I think it can be traced to Daniel F’s constant defending of Bale’s awesome voice, in conjunction with his remarkable acting skills, amazing character emotions, on set calm demeanor, bad-ass film career, overall hygiene, and he’s just the greatest guy in the world damn it point of view,,,”
That was just you simply being a jerk.
^
Honestly I didn’t read Joshi’s comment til later, and it was an attempt at humor, won’t happen again Daniel…
^
Hate me if you want that’s cool,,, I know I come off as an ass sometimes its nothing personal.
Humor is fine, but there is a difference between making an attempt at being funny and having fun at someone elses expense. You’d do well to learn that.
Also I don’t think you come off as an ass.
Point taken Daniel,,,
No hard feelings,,,
Okay now guys, come on, group hug!
No?
Come on don’t leave me hanging!
You guys suck!
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