Veteran television director, Alan Taylor, will be making his feature film debut next month with Thor: The Dark World. After Thor 2, Taylor might be directing another incredibly popular franchise. It was announced last month that he may be directing the reboot to the Terminator franchise (a.k.a. Terminator 5). Recently, Taylor explained that it was the successful reboot of the caped crusader that inspired Terminator 5.
Although Taylor has been rumored to direct the next Terminator film, there hasn’t been an official press release yet. That hasn’t stopped people from asking Taylor about the project and what inspired him to jump on board.
In a recent interview with SlashFilm, Taylor talked about his respect for the first two films and what happened to the sequels that followed.
We all love the first two and I actually went back and watched them again and my respect level only went up. I think there is another famous franchise that had a wonderful beginning and then turned a little bananas….Tim Burton’s first Batman is just glorious and by the time it got around to nipples on costumes and all that stuff it sort of lost its way.
I think it is safe to say that no one appreciates Bat-nipples, but Taylor has a great point about those two particular franchises. James Cameron’s Terminator films are loved by many, and they are responsible for turning Arnold Schwarzenegger into an action star. The sequels that followed were not up to par with the first two, and the newest addition had a great cast, but it wasn’t a particularly strong entry. The Terminator franchise lost its way after the second film, and Batman franchise didn’t return to greatness until Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins.
Taylor credits Nolan with creating a template for directors looking to reboot a franchise:
And for [Christopher] Nolan to come in an say ‘I respect this material so much I’m going to take it up to *here,* that’s a great inspiration.’ I think any version, whoever is directing Terminator, would be very respectful and serve the first two and probably feel a bit more freedom by the end.
For Taylor to acknowledge Nolan’s respect for the franchise and not just how he made a dark and gritty version of the character is why he’s a good choice to helm the new Terminator trilogy. Fans of the franchise don’t want to see the same films that Cameron made; they want to see a director respect the films that came before and push the franchise in a new direction.
Furthermore, speaking with Film School Rejects, the director laid out an explanation for what he thinks worked – and didn’t work in the prior installments:
The funny thing is, those [first] two films could not be more different than each other. The first one was more of a low-budget horror movie, while the second one was more an amazingly well-produced, glossy thriller with a sci-fi concept. They were both so successful, so there’s certain things you learn from them. If you’re going to try and enter the franchise, you better try to come in at that level. Also, it’s a challenging thing, because what they have in mind is a reboot but not an entirely different way of thinking.
As mentioned, Taylor’s involvement in the Terminator reboot hasn’t been made official (yet), but it seems likely that he is the frontrunner, he even claims that “for publicity, I think I’m doing everybody a favor to leave it as a rumor.” Paramount has already revealed that the newest installment in the Terminator series will hit theaters in the very crowded summer of 2015, so if they want to make that deadline they would have to decide on a director very soon. Paramount could be waiting to see how successful Thor: The Dark World is before confirming Taylor but if his work on Game of Thrones is any indication, we’re excited at the prospect of Taylor directing Terminator 5.
_____
Terminator 5 will open in theaters on July 1st, 2015.
