TERMINATOR Franchise to Undergo "Re-adjusting"

A recent report indicated that the idea of a Terminator universe is "on hold indefinitely" after the disappointing domestic box office earnings, and now one of Terminator Genisys' producers is speaking out about the future of the franchise. Dana Goldberg, Skydance Media's Chief Creative Officer, spoke at the Media Leadership Conference (via The Wrap) and was asked whether or not the franchise was on hold. Her response: "I wouldn’t say on hold, so much as re-adjusting.” She also said:

“In terms of Terminator, we’re ultimately happy with overall worldwide numbers. Do I wish we would have done better domestically? Absolutely. But happily, we live in the world where the domestic number had a level of importance even 10 or 15 years ago — I’m not saying it’s not important, it is — but we have to play to a worldwide market. In terms of Terminator, the worldwide market paid attention. We’re not taking the domestic number lightly. You were talking about data and research — we think that's incredibly important. We're going to do a worldwide study and really talk to audiences about Terminator [Genisys] and what they loved and maybe what didn't work for them so that the next step we take with the franchise is the right one...

Do we intend to have a next step with Terminator? Yes we do. We are not going to begin production at the beginning of next year, because again, it would be silly to not have to worry about what audiences have to say."

So what does that mean, exactly? Well, the sequel to Genisys almost certainly won't be coming out in May of 2017 as originally planned, and with all of this talk about seeing what audiences want, I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the storylines set up in Genisys left by the wayside as they move forward with the franchise. Skydance paid a lot of money for the rights to these movies, so the idea of just quitting while they're ahead isn't in the cards: they're going to continue making these movies because as the worldwide box office revealed, there's still an audience out there for them. It's now up to the filmmakers to decide how much they care about the quality of the storytelling and how much work, if any, they're going to put into improving the next movie.