James Cameron’s The Terminator is an untouchable sci-fi noir masterpiece that the director managed to match with a bigger, bolder sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, that transitioned into full-on action-packed spectacle and raised the stakes by tweaking the formula. Since then, the franchise has pumped out four movies, all of which have paled in comparison to the original two, copying T2’s formula with diminishing returns.
After last year’s Dark Fate proved that even Cameron himself can’t save the franchise, it might be best to just end the Terminator series. But as with any potentially profitable intellectual property, Hollywood won’t let that happen. Some directors could make a great Terminator movie, while others have been considered for them in the past.
Almost Did: Ridley Scott
When James Cameron lost interest in directing a third Terminator movie and moved on to helm Titanic, the studio wanted Ridley Scott to take his place, but he was busy with Black Hawk Down.
It would’ve been poetic for Scott to helm a sequel to a Cameron movie, because Cameron had so much success making Aliens, a sequel to Scott’s Alien.
Should: James Mangold
With Wolverine’s swansong Logan, James Mangold proved he can deconstruct a well-worn mythos for a satisfying conclusion to a long-running narrative arc, and with Ford v Ferrari, he proved he can find the universal themes in any story.
These are both elements that the Terminator franchise needs right now. The themes haven’t rung true since T2 and after years of disappointing sequels, the series needs a strong ending.
Almost Did: John McTiernan
John McTiernan was one of the filmmakers considered to take the director’s chair for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines after James Cameron dropped out to focus on Titanic.
McTiernan is one of the most acclaimed action directors of all time, having helmed such classics as Die Hard (the mother of all action movies), Predator, and The Hunt for Red October.
Should: David Leitch
Beginning as an uncredited co-director on the original John Wick movie, David Leitch has made a name for himself as one of the best action filmmakers around. He’s helmed both strong individual movies like Atomic Blonde and satisfying franchise entries like Deadpool 2 and Hobbs & Shaw.
Leitch’s background in stunts ensures that his action scenes are among the most visceral in big-budget Hollywood movies. If he helmed a Terminator movie, he could use as many practical effects as possible to dig the franchise out of its bland CG-heavy rut.
Almost Did: Justin Lin
When the fifth Terminator movie was first in development and Universal was interested in bringing back Arnold Schwarzenegger as the franchise lead, the studio wanted to hire the Fast & Furious team of director Justin Lin and screenwriter Chris Morgan.
By the time a proposal was put together, Morgan was dropped from the project. Eventually, Lin was dropped, too, and Thor: The Dark World director Alan Taylor was tapped to direct Terminator: Genisys.
Should: Guillermo Del Toro
Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro is a master of using genre stories as a prism through which to deliver social commentary, from Pan’s Labyrinth’s critique of the devastating effects of war to The Shape of Water’s meditation on the mindlessness of prejudice.
Del Toro can also deliver the goods in an action-packed blockbuster like Hellboy or Blade II, so he’d be a great choice to continue the Terminator saga.
Almost Did: Michael Bay
Michael Bay turned down the chance to direct Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines back in his Bad Boys II-era heyday, although he did eventually work on a different franchise about robots from the ‘80s.
A Terminator movie directed by Bay certainly would’ve been explosive. It probably would’ve looked like a Transformers movie if the robots were all human-sized and couldn’t turn into cars.
Should: Alex Garland
While Pete Travis is the credited director of 2012’s Dredd, Karl Urban has said that Alex Garland directed so much of the final cut in the reshoots that it might as well be counted as his directorial debut. The violence in that movie is both hard-R brutal and tinged with thought-provoking sci-fi concepts – two elements that made the violence in the first two Terminator movies so much fun.
Garland’s official directorial credits, Ex Machina and Annihilation, are both contemplative genre pieces with fascinating meditations on technology and “the other.” He’d be perfect for a Terminator movie.
Almost Did: Ang Lee
Ang Lee was offered the chance to direct Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, but he turned it down in order to focus his efforts on Hulk, which is now remembered as one of the director’s worst movies.
While the overall quality of Gemini Man suggests that Lee wouldn’t have made a particularly great Terminator movie, he did make Life of Pi, a big-budget blockbuster with much sharper effects than Hulk.
Should: Denis Villeneuve
If anyone can make a Terminator movie that lives up to James Cameron’s initial two outings, it’s Denis Villeneuve. If he can make a satisfying sequel to Blade Runner, he can make a satisfying sequel to T2. The greatest strength of Blade Runner 2049 is that its tone was consistent with the original, while its plot expertly expanded on the worldbuilding.
The Terminator franchise could really use that after so many directors have gotten it wrong. Villeneuve would be perfectly suited to a Terminator movie set after Judgment Day (in other words, Terminator: Salvation, but good).