Kevin's Watch

Bale to segue from "Dark Knight" to "Terminator"

Dec 2, 2007

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Christian Bale is in negotiations to star in "Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins," the fourth installment of the hit science fiction series.

McG ("Charlie's Angels," "We Are Marshall") is directing the movie, which will be distributed by Warner Bros.

The series, which originated with filmmaker James Cameron and made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star, centered on a robot from the future, when machines wage war against humanity, whose goal was to kill Sarah Connor, the mother of the future leader of the human resistance. As the movies progressed, the son, played by Edward Furlong in "T2" and Nick Stahl in "T3," took a more prominent role.

"T4's" story, by David Campbell Wilson, John Brancato and Michael Ferris, focuses on John Connor, now in his 30s, as he leads what is left of the human race against the machines.

Bale, who appeared this year in "3:10 to Yuma," "Rescue Dawn" and "I'm Not There," is currently filming Warner's "Batman Begins" sequel, "The Dark Knight."

Is Arnold going to be in it?

I'm lukewarm on Bale, and I'm not terribly excited about another Terminator sequel (tho I really enjoyed T3).

I'm finnding myself agreeing with you a lot these days Cail.
I too loves T3 (can anyone say "action"?) and the actors were really good (except I had issue with the femail terminator -- very hot, but I never felt she was a threat.)

I am ... "curious" about T4, especially if hey populate the movie with great actors and have a decent script. McG is an on-again-off-again kinda director ...

I'm a helluva guy....

Yeah, the TX wasn't very menacing.

I really would like to see a "future war" Terminator film, but it's got to be done right....And to me that means minimal cg, and lots of practical effects and stunts. I want it to look as realistic as possible.

IOW, I want it to look more like Live Free or Die Hard (which officially gets my vote for Best Film of 2007) than The Transformers.

I like Christian Bale, but McG... well, he calls himself "McG" for one thing. He also directed Sublime's video for "Santeria," and that was friggin' retarded. I haven't seen Marshall, but Full Throttle... thppppt.

I am a huge Bale fan...his work in American Psycho, the Machinist, and the Prestige is as good as ANYTHING I have seen crafted on film. The man is FEARLESS.

Having said that...I have become rather bored with the Terminator as a franchise...though the Universal Studios experince/ride is great.

Love Bail but even he can't save the world from a McG movie.

Yeah, I'm not looking forward to this with McG at the helm. It basically means a lot of action, lots of effects and might be good dumb fun, but it really shouldn't be. I'll wait for the reviews before I get excited about this.

I also like T3 a whole lot more than most seem to. The fight in the bathroom is awesome!!!

I also liked the fact that Arnold and her father automatically worked together to save them. They never met before, and didn't discuss it. They simply had the same agenda, and worked on the same plan.

We should start a "great fights in the bathroom" thread the one in Casino Royale was awesome too!

Bale is great, but I'm afraid that hashing out anotherTM script, may just kill the memory of the first three, which were surprisingly successful for a 3 string sequel. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing, and even Christian Bale, can look bad, with the right script and directing.

Bah humbug, I say. I like Bale, but I'll skip T4. Same reason that I skipped the fourth Alien film - because the third film killed my interest.

Yes, the bathroom fight in T3 was memorable, and I thought the Terminatrix was the best thing about the film. But overall T3 left me cold. The first two Terminator films are all I need.

I agree with everything except the part about the 4th Alien movie, while I didn't especially love the third, the fourth one, definitely had some finer moments. Sigourney Weaver's line "I'm the monster's mother", was ALMOST as good as the all time, "Get away from her you b#@%h!" Besides that, I can't help but love Ron Perlman.

Love the Terminator films. Bale has been great in everything I've seen of him (yes that includes Reign of Fire).
T3 struck me as somewhat unnecessary.
When I heard they were working on T3 I assumed that the ONLY story left to be told was a Future war tale.
I guess we'll get that now.

I agree with "unnecessary." T3 basically undid what had been achieved in T2, just as Alien 3 undid all that had been gained in Aliens.

Seeing as how I think that T2 was a wholly unnecessary retelling of the first film that only served to corrupt the timeline, offer new paradoxes, showcase new effects technology, and inflict a whiny Edward Furlong on an unsuspecting movie public, I thought T3 was OK.

T2 was, in my opinion, horribly overrated, unbearably preachy, and terribly paced. T1 is a masterpiece, T2 is a hollow, loud imitation.

T2 established the concept of a 'Good' Terminator, and that made for some cute moments, and it also established the John Connor character, so I guess it was just like Phantom Menace, which established the 'good' Darth Vader and....uhh....sucked out loud, too.

You know, Eddie Furlong is still around. I woulda liked to see him play JC actually. (I really liked Pecker) Ah well. I don't think we can hope for it to recapture T2 (IMHO, the single greatest action movie of all time, you can put that on record)

There's an action movie thread that we can certainly resurrect, but there's no way I'd put T2 in even a top 10 list, much less call it "the best".

I do agree that they should've stuck with Eddie Furlong. As annoying as he was, there is something to be said for continuity.