Arnold Schwarzenegger has jumped back into acting with both feet after serving as governor of California for the past few years. He’s jumped so hard that he has projects lined up for the next three years – which is awesome if you’ve been yearning for the return of ’80-style action cinema. However, today’s news isn’t quite so rosy if you’ve been yearning to see Arnold revive The Terminator franchise.

While we’ve heard stories for the past year or two about Schwarzenegger returning to the sci-fi franchise alongside Fast Five director Justin Lin, Moviehole is now reporting that there’s no movement on the project, and that there may not even be a project at all at this point.

Moviehole spoke with an unnamed studio employee close to the project. When asked for a progress report about the film, he replied “there really isn’t one.” Say what?

According to this source, the holdup springs from the fact that Schwarzenegger has script approval on the project – and no one’s provided him with a script he likes.

“Arn never really committed to one anyway. All those projects he’s apparently doing – Twins, Commando, Terminator – aren’t real yet; not while he has script approval. He wants a T5 that’s script is a lot better than ROTM [Rise of the Machines]. Isn’t one yet. Reason Lin’s not currently on it.”

The source goes on to reveal that the fifth film’s plot would have brought back not only Schwarzenegger, but also Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn. The story “would’ve centered on an alternate timeline in which Sarah Connor, Kyle Reese lived, but there’s no movie at the moment, thus no locked-in script.”

How would this have worked? Lin explained it in the earlier days of the project. “But I think the great thing about this franchise is you have… you can actually have different canons because you have the element of time travel. So, there’s a way of kind of respecting all the works but also able to create a new time line.”

Or, in other words (as Moviehole points out), they were gonna go the J.J. Abrams Star Trek route.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t look like it’s going to happen – or at least not anytime soon.

How do these new revelations make you feel? Would you be interested in seeing a Terminator film with the original (albeit significantly older) cast returning? What would you do with this franchise if you had Schwarzenegger back onboard? Share your opinions in the comment section.