Schwarzenegger On “Terminator: Salvation”

By Andy Hunsaker, Fancast Movies

Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger has never been one to mince words. So when McG, director of Terminator: Salvation, did him the solid of showing him footage of the first Terminator film to leave him behind, he felt no compunction not to express his lukewarm impressions.

“I still don’t know how it will play out with this one. They showed me some footage, but I don’t have a feel for the movie. I didn’t see enough. I wasn’t sure who the Terminator was. I don’t know if there is one or if he’s the star or the hero. These are the things that determine the success and how the strong the movie will be.”

“I’ve seen very little footage so I don’t really have a feel for it. I hope they do well, and I hope it is a huge hit. I do hope it creates a spectacle on the screen. That is what James Cameron created.”

“With Batman and Terminator, those big movies, there’s a certain expectation and if you don’t live up to it, if the movie is not a 10, then the business will be soft. If ['Salvation'] is pushing it forward, it will be breaking records all the time. If [director McG] has the T4 and the kind of shots that has the audience thinking, ‘Now how did he do that?’ — then it is ‘Terminator’ and you can blow everyone away and every record at the box office.”

If he was shown the same footage that was revealed at Comic-Con, then he’s right in that it doesn’t really illustrate what the story is or who the characters are beyond Christian Bale as John Connor. As far as his own feelings about the franchise finally outgrowing him (which it has needed to do for some time now), Arnold is shrugging it all off:

“The same thing happened with bodybuilding. Seven times I won the Mr. Olympia title, a record, no one had done that. Then someone else [South Carolina native Lee Haney] won it eight times. Do I sit and say, ‘Darn it, my record is gone’ or ‘Darn, I’m not up there on stage.’ No, because I’ve moved into other phases of my life. I moved on from bodybuilding into entertainment. Then I moved on from entertainment into a political life. Now this is the most exciting experience of my life. When this movie comes out, I won’t be sitting there saying, ‘Why can’t I do that?’ I hope it makes a lot of money and is very successful.”