Terminator Salvation Hits Theaters

Terminator Salvation, the newest installment of the blockbuster franchise, hit theaters this weekend and it already has 13 million dollars in the war chest. According to Variety, Salvation is expected to top 60 million putting it a few notches above the last movie in the series.

Certainly darker than the earlier flicks, Terminator Salvation takes us into another world.

“I didn’t want to shoot actors against green screens; I wanted them reacting to physical Terminators,” says director, McG. “I wanted the desolate American West–an expanse that suggests a world of hardship, so you could taste it and feel it. Because the bombs have gone off and damaged the ozone, the sky’s a bit of a different color. Earth has a different quality, and you immediately realize something is wrong.”

Wrong, doesn’t begin to cover it.

Terminator Salvation takes place in 2018, 14 years after the nuclear attack that ended the previous Terminator trilogy. Producer Moritz Borman, who also served as an executive producer on Terminator 3, remarks, “From the start, we made a conscious decision that just as the previous films had been set in the timeframe we know today, Terminator Salvation would begin to reveal the future that had only been glimpsed in the earlier movies. So we’re jumping to the time when Kyle Reese is still a teenager and they have not yet discovered what we know comes next, mainly the time travel that set the story in motion. In this film, we are finally in the midst of the war that was forewarned, and we can watch Connor’s rise to become the head of the resistance.”

“In Terminator Salvation,” says star Christian Bale, “Skynet is dominant but still in a state of evolution. Humans are definitely on the out. Their backs are against the wall and their circumstances are desperate. This is the last, final effort for the survival of mankind.”

“Everything is difficult for humans now,” McG attests. “It’s difficult to get food, difficult to get energy. Everything is depleted. And you’re always being hunted.”

Nevertheless, Borman states, “There has to be hope for humanity. There has to be something in the way that they live that shows they believe there will be a future after the machines, that the world might rise again out of the ashes. And their hope is, of course, pinned to John Connor.”

Marcus Wright (SAM WORTHINGTON) stands in front of what remains of the Hollywood sign post-Judgment Day in Warner Bros. Pictures’ action/sci-fi feature “Terminator Salvation,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release, also starring Christian Bale.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures