James Cameron wants to reboot the Terminator franchise and focus more on the AI side of robots

James Cameron wants to bring Arnold Schwarzenegger's iconic character, the Terminator, back to the big screen.

That's right folks, we could have a reboot on our hands.

Cameron dropped the Skynet-sized bombshell during a sit-down with the SmartLess podcast.

The iconic director told hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett discussions are now underway for him to bring the franchise back.

"If I were to do another Terminator film and maybe try to launch that franchise again, which is in discussion, but nothing has been decided," Cameron said.

He added: "I would make it much more about the AI side of it than bad robots gone crazy."

Interesting.

Another film in the long-running franchise would mean that Cameron has a chance to return the Terminator storyline to its former glory.

The 1984 original film was a real hit back in the day and spawned a string of follow-up films.

Titles included Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in 2003, Terminator Salvation in 2009, Terminator Genisys in 2015, and Terminator: Dark Fate in 2019.

But the tail end of that list featured a few box office failures, with Genisys and Dark Fate failing to win over audiences.

In fact, Dark Fate bombed as hard as the Judgment Day nuclear strike, in which Skynet became self-aware and kicked off a string of nuclear strikes, killing three billion people.

Okay, that metaphor may have been slightly dramatic.

This tanking was more of the box office variety, with the film raking in a measly USD$261 million (AUD$390 million, £215 million).

Cameron spoke out about the disastrous Dark Fate film while on the press circuit for Avatar: The Way of Water, revealing having both Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton from the original cast just did not work.

Dark Fate was directed by Deadpool's Tim Miller, who adapted a story by Cameron after the two could not agree on which original star to bring back for the last movie.

"I think the movie could have survived having Linda in it," Cameron said, as per IndieWire.

"I think it could have survived having Arnold in it, but when you put Linda and Arnold in it and then, you know, she’s 60-something, he’s 70-something, all of a sudden it wasn’t your Terminator movie, it wasn’t even your dad’s Terminator movie, it was your granddad’s Terminator movie."

But, despite the small box office takings of Dark Fate, it may not have been enough to kill off the film franchise, much like Schwarzenegger's titular and unkillable cyborg.

So watch this space, because in the words of the Terminator himself: "I'll be back."