Sam Worthington is joining the cast of McG’s new Terminator sequel, Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins. If Worthington’s name sounds familiar, there’s a good chance it’s because he’s starring in James Cameron’s next magnum opus, Avatar. And that’s where this gets interesting.

Variety reports that Worthington landed the T4 part because of James Cameron. Apparently Cameron’s not as out on this Terminator sequel as he was on the last one, and has at least some sort of relationship with its director. Word is that JC called McG personally, and recommended Worthington for the part. Now it’s not exactly as if this fourth Terminator movie has Cameron’s blessing, but if he’s talking to the director then neither is he opposed to it. Or maybe he just likes Sam and wanted to help him out. I could be reading too much into this.

Worthingon will join the cast to play a character new to the Terminator universe. He’s “Marcus”, a guy who’s expected to be a major part of the upcoming trilogy McG is hoping to kick off. Other than that, we don’t know exactly where Marcus fits in yet. We do know that Christian Bale is playing John Connor, and that the film will be set in the long predicted future in which Skynet takes over the world and Connor leads a group of resistance fighters against the machines. Maybe Marcus will be one of his lieutenants.