When Terminator Salvation was released in 2009, it wound up being a bit of a clunker. Made with a stunning $200 million budget, the movie was not only poorly received by critics, but also underperformed in the United States and made a rather underwhelming $371 million worldwide. It was widely viewed as a disappointment – and about five years after its release star Christian Bale – John Connor himself - has admitted that he doesn’t exactly have good reflections on the movie either.
While interviewing Bale in promotion of the upcoming release of Exodus: Gods and Kings, MTV asked the star if he had ever been approached about the upcoming Terminator Genisys, and in revealing his lack of connection to the project, the Salvation star admitted that things really didn’t go well with his entry in the Terminator franchise. Said the actor,
"No, I didn't talk with anyone about [Terminator Genisys]. I knew that we gave it a shot, it didn't work. I know the reasons for that. Wisdom sometimes is knowing when you have to walk away."
Christian Bale also added that "everything was against [them]" when they were making Terminator Salvation, and added that it was a "shame" that it didn’t work out well. That being said, he also wished the production of Terminator Genisys "a lot better luck" than they had, and added, "I wish it the best. I hope it does well."
The failure of Terminator Salvation came at a pretty bad time for Christian Bale. While he was just coming off of and riding high on the incredible blockbuster and critical success of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight in 2008, unfortunately 2009 was also the year of Michael Mann’s Public Enemies (another underwhelming title). He was also still dealing with the fallout from controversy on the Terminator Salvation set that was caused when audio was leaked of the star screaming at cinematographer Shane Hurlbut. Of course, the actor wound up bouncing back quite well in the years since, having won the Academy Award for his work in David O. Russell’s The Fighter, being nominated for his work in , and finding box office success in The Dark Knight Rises.
The Terminator franchise, meanwhile, has spent years in limbo, but will be coming back with a big release next summer in Terminator Genisys that is hoped to be the start of a brand new trilogy. We haven’t been hearing a ton of great things about the movie, and it doesn’t look too good, but we’ll just have to wait and see how it turns out when its released on July 1, 2015.
