James Cameron defends Terminator Dark Fate, the “3rd best film in the franchise”

“Even if we miscalculated our move…” The director finds that Tim Miller’s film is “great”, but recognizes strategic errors, on a commercial level.

Only $261.1 million in worldwide revenue and an estimated loss of $120 million for the studio, not to mention the poor reviews at the time… Terminator Dark Fate has not really remained engraved in the annals of cinema. And yet, James Cameron today wants to defend the film of Tim Miller released in 2019.

In a recent interview with Empire Magazine, the filmmaker even believes that Dark Fate is the third best film in the franchise Terminator (which has 6) behind… the first two parts that he directed, obviously.

“The Terminator Rev-9… Honestly it was very cool! Personally, I think it’s as good as anything we did at the time. We achieved our goal” cwe trust the one who was also producer and co-writer of Terminator Dark Fate. “We made a real sequel to an old film. Except the people who were actually going to the movies when the previous movie came out were all dead, retired, sick, or suffering from dementia. So it was a failure. Because there was nothing in the film for a new audience.”

These are the reasons for the flop according to James Cameron. Terminator Dark Fate failed to attract young people, by relying on old people: himself, back at the helm, Linda Hamilton in Sarah Connor and Schwarzenegger in Terminator.

“Our problem wasn’t that the film itself didn’t work. The problem was that people didn’t go see it. I often told Tim Miller (the director) that I was the reason cause in a way I torpedoed this film before we had even written a word or shot a piece of film.

Because James Cameron also admits to having been very invested, largely repeating the first cut of Tim Miller who was “quite rude“according to him: “I’m an editor myself, so I gave both general and very specific notes. I was also very involved in the writing and then I was very involved in the editing, which is really a extension of writing in my opinion.”

In the end, James Cameron believes that, “even if we miscalculated our move“, Terminator Dark Fate must be ranked on the podium of the saga :

“I think the movie is basically great. I still think mine are the best, but I have it solidly in third place!”