Terminator Salvation

Did You Know?

• Danny Elfman began composing the score in January 2009.
• The film is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America, unlike the first three films which are rated R.

Plot

Back in 2003, a Cyberdyne Systems scientist named Dr. Serena Kogan got a death row inmate, Marcus Wright, to agree to donate his body for research after his execution. Not long after, the Skynet system went live, became self-aware, and decided humanity was a threat, kicking off a nuclear war called Judgment Day. Fast forward to 2018, and John Connor is leading a raid on a Skynet facility. There, he finds blueprints showing that human prisoners are being used as living skin for a new model, the T-800. John gets out alive after a nuclear blast levels the base. Once he's gone, Marcus crawls out of the rubble and starts walking toward Los Angeles.

Back at Resistance HQ, John confronts General Ashdown and the other commanders. They've picked up a hidden signal they think can turn off all of Skynet's machines, and they're planning to strike Skynet's San Francisco base in four days. Why the rush? They intercepted a kill list from Skynet that will take out the Resistance's top leaders in that same window. John finds out he's number two on that list, right behind Kyle Reese. That's when it clicks: Skynet knows Kyle will one day travel back in time and become John's father.

In L.A., Marcus runs into Kyle and a mute girl named Star during a fight with Skynet's machines. Soon after, Kyle and Star get captured by Skynet. Two Resistance A-10s are shot down trying to stop a machine transport. Marcus saves a downed pilot, Blair Williams, and they make it to John's base. But a magnetic land mine wounds Marcus. When the Resistance tries to save him, they discover he's a cyborg: a metal endoskeleton, a partly artificial brain, and a human heart. Marcus insists he's still human, but John and his wife Kate think he's a plant sent to assassinate them. John orders his execution. Blair helps Marcus escape. During the chase, Marcus saves John from Skynet's hydrobots. They cut a deal: if John lets him live, Marcus will sneak into Skynet's San Francisco HQ to help rescue Kyle and the other prisoners.

Cast

Christian Bale portrays John Connor, a Resistance fighter and central character. Director McG deemed Bale the most credible action star in the world during development. McG wanted Bale for Marcus, but the actor wanted to play John, and that led to the character's role getting expanded in rewrites of the script. Bale was the first person to be cast and signed on for the role in November 2007.

McG talked extensively with Bale in the UK about the role while the latter was filming The Dark Knight, and they both agreed to proceed. Although a fan of the Terminator series, Bale was at first uninterested until McG convinced him the story would be character-based and not rely on special effects. McG said Bale broke his hand punching a Terminator prop during filming. Bale spent six to eight hours each day with McG in the editing room to advise the finished product.

In January 2018, Bale revealed he rejected the role three times before accepting it, in part to spite those who told him not to take the role. Sam Worthington plays Marcus Wright, a human-Terminator hybrid cyborg. Worthington compared Marcus to Dorothy and Alice due to being this person waking up in another world who then tries to find himself. Terminator creator James Cameron personally recommended Worthington to McG.

Russell Crowe also recommended him to McG. The director decided Worthington looked tougher than a great many of today's young male actors. Worthington recalled Cameron told him the Terminator to make is the one with the war. Worthington tore his intercostal muscles during the first weeks of filming but nevertheless insisted on performing his own stunts.

McG once expressed interest in casting Christian Bale, Daniel Day-Lewis or Josh Brolin in the part. Brolin did talk to Bale and read a draft of the screenplay, which he found interesting and dark; ultimately, though, he did not think it felt right.

Production

Two years after C2 Pictures bought the rights in 1997, the studio outlined story ideas for two Terminator films and planned to develop them at the same time. Tedi Sarafian was brought on to write Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, for which he later shared story credit, and David C. Wilson was assigned to write the fourth film. Before any drafts were revised, the third movie was set in 2001 and focused on the opening battles between Skynet and humanity.

Warner Bros. Pictures used the code name "Project Angel" for this project. After Terminator 3 came out in 2003, producers Andrew G. Vajna and Mario Kassar signed Nick Stahl and Claire Danes to reprise their roles as John Connor and Kate Brewster for another installment. Director Jonathan Mostow worked on developing the script, which John Brancato and Michael Ferris wrote, and planned to start filming in 2005 once he finished another movie. By then it was clear that Arnold Schwarzenegger would have a small part because he had become Governor of California.

The producers wanted Warner Bros. to fund the movie, just as they had for Terminator 3. In 2005, Stahl mentioned that John and Kate would be played by different actors because the story would jump ahead in time. By 2006, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which had taken over the library of the original film's distributor and producer, was set to release the fourth movie as part of CEO Harry Sloan's plan to revive the studio. On May 9, 2007, the production rights moved from the feuding Vajna and Kassar to the Halcyon Company, which aimed to launch a new trilogy.

A hedge fund called Pacificor provided a loan to finance the purchase. By July 19, the project was stuck in legal trouble because of a lawsuit between MGM and a Halcyon subsidiary. MGM had a 30-day exclusive window to negotiate distribution rights for the Terminator films. When talks for the fourth movie began, Halcyon turned down MGM's first offer, and MGM paused negotiations.

After the 30 days ended, MGM argued that the suspension period should not count, so their exclusive window was still open. Halcyon asked a court for permission to talk to other distributors.

Reception

Terminator Salvation opened with $3 million from its first nationwide midnight screenings in the U.S. and pulled in $13.3 million on its opening day. Over the four-day Memorial Day weekend, it earned $42,558,390 from 3,530 theaters, landing in second place behind Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, which took $54.1 million. That opening weekend was lower than the previous Terminator film, and it marked the first time a movie in the series didn't debut at number one.

It also missed Boxoffice Magazine's pre-release predictions by about 50 percent. Overseas, the film did better, hitting number one in 66 out of 70 territories during the first week of June and staying the top-grossing international film the following week. Its theatrical run ended on September 10, 2009, with $125,322,469 from the U.S. and Canada and $246,030,532 from other countries, for a worldwide total of $371,353,001. That made it the 16th-highest-grossing film globally and the 22nd-highest in the U.S. and Canada among 2009 releases.

Critics were lukewarm. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 33 percent approval rating from 279 reviews, with an average score of 5.10 out of 10. The site's consensus says the storytelling is as robotic as the film's iconic villains, offering strong effects but missing the heart of the earlier movies. On Metacritic, it scored 49 out of 100 from 46 reviews, indicating mixed or average reception.

Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it a B+. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it two out of four stars, summing up the plot as a guy who dies, gets resurrected, meets others, and fights for nearly two hours. Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter noted the film lacks Arnold Schwarzenegger and its dramatic element. Claudia Puig of USA Today also gave it two out of four stars, calling it predictable with flat dramatic elements.

She found Christian Bale's performance one-dimensional but thought his co-stars fared better: Sam Worthington had a quiet intensity, though he yelled "Nooooo!" three times in about ten minutes, and Anton Yelchin got some of the best lines.