Christian Bale is to play rebel leader John Connor in three sequels to the Terminator franchise, its producers have revealed.
The Welsh-born star, who is soon to be seen in Batman Begins sequel The Dark Knight, has already started shooting the first of those films, Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins.
"He's really an actor's actor, so we're very proud," said Victor Kubicek of film company Halcyon.
Charlie's Angels director McG is directing the new film, which is due to be released on 22 May 2009.
"Christian was our first choice and he's a big fan of The Terminator, so we're very lucky," Kubicek told the BBC at the Cannes Film Festival.
"But with Batman he's already done the whole franchise thing, so we weren't sure he'd respond."
Luckily, said Kubicek's business partner Derek Anderson, "he read the script and he loved it, so he's signed on for all three."
US rap star Common will also have a lead role in the film, as will Australian actor Sam Worthington, who will soon be seen in Titanic director James Cameron's science-fiction epic Avatar.
The producers would not reveal whether Arnold Schwarzenegger would reprise his role as the Terminator. Nor would they discuss character names or plot details.
"We can't talk about the story points at all," said Kubicek, adding the project was being kept strictly under wraps.
"Not everyone gets to see the script. They only see the part of the script that's relevant to the job they're doing."
But the producers promised not to disappoint fans of the time-travelling franchise, which has also spawned TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
"We're both huge Terminator fans and we're just approaching it from the point of view of what we'd like to see," said Anderson.
"Any time we're feeling pressure we just take a step back and say, as fans, 'what would we like to see?'"
Jon wrote:US rap star Common will also have a lead role in the film,
Has he ever acted in anything else? If so, how did he do?
Stuff like that makes me nervous as I don't have a particularly high esteem for most rapstars turned actors.
The Gentleman from Texas abstains. Discourteously.
PRFYNAFBTFC-Vice Admiral: MFS Masturbating Walrus :: Omine subtilite Odobenus rosmarus masturbari Soy un perdedor.
"WHO POOPED IN A NORMAL ROOM?!"-Commander William T. Riker
Am I the only one who thinks Bale would make a better Reese?
Mayabird is my girlfriend
Justice League:BotM:MM:SDnet City Watch:Cybertron's Finest "Well then, science is bullshit. "
-revprez, with yet another brilliant rebuttal.
I just hope that this doesn't screw up the TV series. I'm not sure how the execs will feel about having two divergent Terminator continuities running in tandem.
"Stop! No one can survive these deadly rays!"
"These deadly rays will be your death!"
- Thor and Akton, Starcrash
"Before man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to England, to India or to Australia by guided missiles.... We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."
- Arthur Summerfield, US Postmaster General 1953 - 1961
Ain't all the Terminator films kind of divergent anyway?
Mayabird is my girlfriend
Justice League:BotM:MM:SDnet City Watch:Cybertron's Finest "Well then, science is bullshit. "
-revprez, with yet another brilliant rebuttal.
Jon wrote:US rap star Common will also have a lead role in the film,
Has he ever acted in anything else? If so, how did he do?
I think he was in SMokin' Aces. If he's who I think he is, he's certainly not bad.
OOOOHHHHH! I know who you're talking about. Thanks, that makes me feel much better, he certainly fit the bill for that character. I think he'll do well as long as it's not to heavy on the acting chops and since this is a Terminator film with more action than acting per se, well...
The Gentleman from Texas abstains. Discourteously.
PRFYNAFBTFC-Vice Admiral: MFS Masturbating Walrus :: Omine subtilite Odobenus rosmarus masturbari Soy un perdedor.
"WHO POOPED IN A NORMAL ROOM?!"-Commander William T. Riker
DPDarkPrimus wrote:Ain't all the Terminator films kind of divergent anyway?
The first two are in continuity with each other, but after that you've got the T3+ movie timeline and the Sarah Connor Chronicles timeline which have nothing to do with each other (SCC is a hell of a lot better, by the way.)
There's also the novels, but they don't count.
"Stop! No one can survive these deadly rays!"
"These deadly rays will be your death!"
- Thor and Akton, Starcrash
"Before man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to England, to India or to Australia by guided missiles.... We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."
- Arthur Summerfield, US Postmaster General 1953 - 1961
Spanky The Dolphin wrote:McG is what director Joseph McGinty Nichol calls himself.
He should be ten lashes after being tied to a mast for giving himself that nickname. That's pretty lame.
Anyway... THREE terminator movies? Really? We've completely run out of ideas haven't we?
"Show me an angel and I will paint you one." - Gustav Courbet
"Quetzalcoatl, plumed serpent of the Aztecs... you are a pussy." - Stephen Colbert
"Really, I'm jealous of how much smarter than me he is. I'm not an expert on anything and he's an expert on things he knows nothing about." - Me, concerning a bullshitter
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
Gil Hamilton wrote:Anyway... THREE terminator movies? Really? We've completely run out of ideas haven't we?
I'm VERY fearful for the upcoming movies' quality, considering the disaster that was 'Terminator 3'.
We can only hope that the horror that was Terminator 3 has taught them a lesson.
We can only hope.
"..history has shown the best defense against heavy cavalry are pikemen, so aircraft should mount lances on their noses and fly in tight squares to fend off bombers". - RedImperator
"ha ha, raping puppies is FUN!" - Johonebesus
"It would just be Unicron with pew pew instead of nom nom". - Vendetta, explaining his justified disinterest in the idea of the movie Allspark affecting the Death Star
He was also set to direct what would've most likely been the worst Superman movie ever.
"Stop! No one can survive these deadly rays!"
"These deadly rays will be your death!"
- Thor and Akton, Starcrash
"Before man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to England, to India or to Australia by guided missiles.... We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."
- Arthur Summerfield, US Postmaster General 1953 - 1961
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
My fucking god, T3 was not that awful. You're acting like it shit all over your children or something. It wasn't as good as T2 (the film I was raised on), but that doesn't make it a terrible movie.
Losonti Tokash wrote:My fucking god, T3 was not that awful. You're acting like it shit all over your children or something. It wasn't as good as T2 (the film I was raised on), but that doesn't make it a terrible movie.
No, it managed to be a terrible movie on its own merits. I'm not that big of a fanboy to worship T2, and in fact prefer the original, but that doesn't blind me to the severe drop in quality that was T3.
Björn Paulsen
"Travelers with closed minds can tell us little except about themselves."
--Chinua Achebe
Losonti Tokash wrote:My fucking god, T3 was not that awful. You're acting like it shit all over your children or something. It wasn't as good as T2 (the film I was raised on), but that doesn't make it a terrible movie.
My only problem with T3 was that it completely went against what it was telling you in T2, other than that I found it to be pretty decent.
The enemy terminator didn't scare the shit out of me like Ahnuld and the T1000 did. The Ahnuld terminator in T3 wasn't as cool as the T2 version, and it almost seems like they were trying to make him the same character. There was little suspense, and the moronic twist ending was fucking stupid.
T3 was a horrible movie. Not because it wasn't as good as T2, but because it just wasn't very good. I was ashamed that I paid 8 dollars to see that movie.
I had a Bill Maher quote here. But fuck him for his white privelegy "joke".
Now they'll have to contend with Claire Danes' fairly uninteresting character, and difficulties surrounding Arnie. They could just make up some more Terminators, but without him it becomes a fairly generic humans vs robots/cyborgs story.
"Any time we're feeling pressure we just take a step back and say, as fans, 'what would we like to see?'"
How about less milking of the cash cow?
"Oh no, oh yeah, tell me how can it be so fair
That we dying younger hiding from the police man over there
Just for breathing in the air they wanna leave me in the chair
Electric shocking body rocking beat streeting me to death"
- A.B. Original, Report to the Mist
"I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."
- George Carlin
