This year's SDCC is now up and running, and today brings our first shocker of a news item, delivered by James Cameron himself: Edward Furlong, who played John Connor in Cameron's Terminator 2: Judgment Day, is returning to the franchise to reprise the role for this year's Terminator: Dark Fate.

Cameron made the announcement as part of his video introduction to the panel, in which he also discussed bringing Linda Hamilton back into the Terminator fold. Says ComicBook.com:

"You've got Tim Miller fresh off of Deadpool," Cameron said. "Me coming back to the franchise almost three decades later...[we're] coming up with crazy new stuff you've never seen before...One thing we kept circling around, 'Do we want to bring Sarah back? And there is no Sarah but Linda, so how to do we talk Linda into being in this movie?" He sent her an e-mail detailing reasons why she should and why she shouldn't do the movie so she could make a decision, noting that they "won the Super Bowl in 88 and 91." Ultimately, the fan love for Sarah Connor was what Cameron relied on to get her back. "We asked Linda to come back and thankfully she agreed, and we built the story about that. Eddie Furlong is back as John. "

This is truly unexpected news. We've known for a long time now that Hamilton would be back as Sarah Connor, but there's been no reason to believe Furlong would be back in any capacity. The years since Terminator 2: Judgment Day have not been easy for Furlong, who's struggled with addiction and legal issues and an industry that seemed somewhat confused what to do with him after the furor surrounding T2 died down. If he's back, he must be doing pretty well these days, right?

As of this writing, there's not much else to go on in terms of John Connor's role in Terminator: Dark Fate, but perhaps the trailer that's rumored to be arriving later today will shed some light on the situation. Stay tuned for that, as well as for further updates out of SDCC 2019, as they roll in. In the meantime: what do you make of this? Happy for Furlong? Unhappy? Sound off in the comments below.