James Cameron says Terminator 6 views the later sequels as “a bad dream”, will introduce a new female lead

Over the past week or so we’ve heard several details on director Tim Miller and producer James Cameron’s plans for a sixth Terminator movie. We know that both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton will be returning to the franchise, and that the new movie will serve as a direct sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Now, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, James Cameron has revealed that the as-yet-untitled Terminator 6 will viewTerminator 3: Rise of the Machines,Terminator: Salvation and Terminator Genisys as “a bad dream”, as well as revealing that the search is underway for a new female lead to be the “centerpiece” of the planned new trilogy.

“This is a continuation of the story fromTerminator 1 and Terminator 2,” said Cameron. “And we’re pretending the other films were a bad dream. Or an alternate timeline, which is permissible in our multi-verse. This was really driven more by Tim than anybody, surprisingly, because I came in pretty agnostic about where we took it. The only thing I insisted on was that we somehow revamp it and reinvent it for the 21st century.”

Cameron also revealed that the new movies will see the passing of the torch of sorts, a la Star Wars: The Force Awakens, stating that: “A lot of this is handing off the baton to a new generation of characters. We’re starting a search for an 18-something young woman to essentially be the new centerpiece of these stories. And then a number of other characters around her and characters from the future. We still fold time in the story in intriguing ways. But we have Arnold’s character and Linda’s character to anchor it. Somewhere across there, and I won’t say where, the baton gets passed, so to speak.”