John Cena, Dwayne Johnson, and many muscle blazers could be the new face of the Terminator franchise. It is one of the biggest franchises in Hollywood, expanding to the global dominance in the sci-fi action genre. Created by James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd, the series has gained a cult status, amassing worldwide fans across different media.
Since the release of the first installment of the franchise, The Terminator in 1984, the rated-R film established action megastar Arnold Schwarzenegger as the face of the franchise. But after decades, new movies of the franchise may look for a new version of Schwarzenegger’s character in an attempt to establish a fresh action star face to the series.
John Cena Could Replace Dwayne Johnson in Terminator 7
The legacy of the franchise is sustained through the instantaneous action sequences surrounded by the robot-human conflict. The association of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Terminator, who once possessed a muscular physique, brings out the character’s completely bad a*s traits in the film. So, it is obvious that there could be more muscle blazers in the line to play the Terminator. For years, Dwayne Johnson was rumored to be considered for the role, yet the maker’s reaction to that is pretty slim to none.
Now, John Cena has surfaced for the role. Is he going to replace Schwarzenegger? Could be! Even though Johnson was rumored to appear in the fifth installment of the franchise Terminator Genisys, it did not happen. But Cena’s recent debut in the expected list has created a pretty decent online buzz.
Earlier, Cena posted an image on Instagram featuring the Skynet logo- the antagonistic neural network in the Terminator movies. As Cena’s habit goes, there was no caption to the post but that could be his own way of teasing the fans with updates.
Back to Cena as Terminator, graphic artist Nikolay Mochkin has released five images of Cena as Terminator captioning “CSM-102”– a medium assault infiltrator humanoid hunter-killer of the T-808 series. Adding to the caption, the artist wrote that “This bro [John Cena] keeps the right way,” further asking, “What do you guys think? Will the Terminator as John Cena protect us or kill us?”
The wrestler-turned-actor as Terminator looks solid in the character’s iconic red eye while wielding a gun. The sunglass, however, is a bit different from that of Schwarzenegger’s. But, this is just concept art, there’s no official update regarding the cast of the new Terminator.
Will Terminator 7 Roll Out?
At this point in time, it’s pretty hard to say after the failure of the franchise’s latest installment, Terminator: Dark Fate, which was released in 2019. The movie made for around $185-196 million budget, only managed to collect $261 million at the box office. So, the possibilities of the upcoming movies from the franchise are on an indefinite pause. Further, Schwarzenegger also said that he is done with the franchise and won’t appear in the later installments.
But, if it were to be made, James Cameron would have a different approach. Earlier, at a Dell Tech World conference, the filmmaker provided an update on the film. According to Rod Mercado, who posted the update on Twitter, Cameron started writing a new Terminator movie about 3 months ago. However, he paused writing because he wanted to see “how AI shakes out before he goes any further.”
Further, appearing on the Smartless podcast in 2022, Cameron expressed his desire to explore the AI side of the story than bad robots going crazy.
“If I were to do another ‘Terminator’ film and maybe try and to launch that franchise again … I would make it much more about the AI side of it than bad robots gone crazy.”
So far, only the buzz created by fans is on the surface, an official update with the confirmation of the film rolling out is still awaited. Fans may have to wait a little longer as Cameron’s fresh AI script is still in the process.
Source: Looper
