The fourth Terminator movie, Terminator Salvation isn’t even finished and they’re already planning the fifth. Salvation director McG made the announcement at the Dubai Film Festival according to Variety.

But since there’s nothing more to the announcement than simply that it’s happening, this isn’t really the biggest news to come out of Dubai. I think this is bigger. Remember when McG was supposed to be the one doing a Superman movie, based on that horrible script floating around in which Jimmy Olsen was gay and Krypton was never destroyed and all manner of un-Superman, awful things were written down for filming? Ever wonder why he didn’t do it? Well Variety says he passed on it because he was afraid of flying.

That’s right, we were saved from a McG Superman movie by his fear of heights. The movie was being shot in Australi, McG would have had to hop a plane to get there, and he couldn’t get up the nerve to do it. Maybe this is old news, but it’s the first I’ve heard of it. I’m afraid of heights (though not of flying), but this is the first time I’ve ever actually been thankful for that particular phobia.

When McG backed out of the project, he blamed the whole thing on his undying love of New York City, babbling on about patriotism. Warners wanted it shot in Australia, he wanted New York. While talking to the press about his reasons for exiting the project McG back then said, “It was clear to me that this was Metropolis. As a filmmaker, I felt it was inappropriate to try to capture the heart of America on another continent. I look at Superman as a character that embodies all that is beautiful about America.” According to Variety, that was all BS and he was simply afraid to hop on a jet.

My inbox and the comments section below will now, as it always does, fill up with people screaming about how awful Superman Returns was and pretending as if everyone hated it even though at the time most people seemed to like it. Have at it. I don’t care what revisionist hate labels you want to fling at Superman Returns, Singer’s version has to be better than the kung-fu, Matrix-knockoff version McG was planning.