Alright, so the Terminators may have had their “rise,” but then they fell. We later bit on the promise of “salvation,” but that really didn’t go as planned. So now the question remains if the Terminator franchise can have a satisfying ending (or at least have a conclusion that measures up to first two films directed by James Cameron). Overlooking the fact that the franchise should have ended with Judgment Day, filmmakers have tried to continue the franchise only to have Terminator fanboys have mixed feelings on parts 3 and 4.
That all may change if William Wisher’s treatments and subsequent screenplays for a Terminator 5 and a Terminator 6 ever come to fruition. Over at Deadline Hollywood, Mike Flemming has had the privilege of reading both a treatment for 5 and a concept outline for 6, and he’s completely sold on the idea. He writes:
As a Terminator fanboy myself, I think Wisher has done a terrific job with a plot that accepts the storylines from Jonathan Mostow’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and McG’s Terminator: Salvation. Most interestingly, he turns the story back to the core characters and time travel storyline of the first two films that Wisher crafted with Cameron.
Wisher’s 2-picture construct takes place in a post-apocalyptic battleground, and factors in an element of time travel that allows for Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese to interact beyond their single fateful meeting when he traveled back in time to protect her in the original film. Wisher has created a role for Arnold Schwarzenegger that is as surprising as his shift from villain in the first film, to John Connor’s bodyguard in the second. Schwarzenegger wouldn’t be needed until the final film, which wouldn’t shoot until after he ends his term as California Governor.
There are several new villains, and plenty of firepower. For instance, a swarm of “Night Crawlers,” 4 1/2-foot tall border sentries that are set like mines to spring up out of the ground and ambush rebel fighters with 10 MM pistols built into their wrists, and fingers and feet that are razor sharp. Also fresh off the Skynet assembly line are new shape-shifting cyborgs that can morph together in Transformers-like mode, and are more lethal than anything we’ve seen in previous Terminator installments.
Just like Allan Loeb gets Escape From New York, I think Wisher has got the right idea on how to finish the Terminator franchise once and for all. (Well, at least until the studio decides to go back to the franchise in search of more box office moola.) If the co-op between Sony Pictures and Lionsgate does happen, they need to seriously consider Wisher’s pitch. What does everyone else think?
