Article content continued

“Getting the franchise back on its feet and saying (to the fans), ‘We have a good creative team in place and we know what we’re doing,’” Cameron says, was the goal.

“This was really more of a transitional film in our minds. It’s also moving on from the prior characters to a new set of characters and a new reality.”

Whether there’s a sequel remains to be seen.

Dark Fate debuted at the top of the box office last week, but fell well below expectations.

“I think the game plan would be to get started right away,” he says. “But I think the writing will be on the wall within a couple of weeks. If we’re profitable, David Ellison and I will sit down and say, ‘OK, what’s our timetable?’ But I think it will be quick.

“A film like this doesn’t take that long to make. It’s not like Avatar, which is four years. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. It’s not a clear slam dunk success like the Joker. I think the jury is going to be out for a bit.

“But that’s how the game works … Part of what we were trying to do with this film was get back to the basics that fans of the first two films will recognize.”

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or

On a break from looking at footage from his Avatar sequels (“It’s almost here,” he jokes), Cameron spoke about rewiring Terminator for a new generation.

The Terminator franchise had been chugging along for almost a quarter of a century without you. Why did you come back?

Firstly, I didn’t like some of the sequels that had been made. But I guess it was an opportunity to say something new about the never-ending conflict between humans and artificial intelligence, because it will take place. Whether that’s a smooth transition or whether that’s a rocky one or whether there’s an apocalypse, remains to be seen but I don’t think people are taking it as seriously as they should. If you talk to any AI researcher, they all say it’s pretty inevitable that they’ll be able to develop an artificial intelligence equal to ours or even greater. And I don’t think that there’s enough adult supervision for what they’re doing. That’s speaking as a science-fiction writer, that’s speaking as a filmmaker and that’s speaking as a father of five. This is a potential existential threat.