50 Fun Facts About Terminator

James Cameron got the idea for The Terminator from a fever dream while promoting which film?

Cameron then treated the dream as a 'launching pad' for a slasher-style script, inspired by John Carpenter's low-budget Halloween.

Which studio distributed The Terminator in 1984?

The studio had so little faith in the film that it expected a poor box office and negative reviews; it topped the US chart for two weeks.

Roughly how much did The Terminator cost to make?

It went on to gross $78.3 million worldwide, more than twelve times its budget.

Which football star did Orion suggest for the Terminator, only for Cameron to find him unbelievable as a killer?

Schwarzenegger himself was originally approached to play Kyle Reese before befriending Cameron and taking the machine role instead.

Which actor showed up to a pitch meeting dressed as the Terminator to help Cameron sell the film?

He ended up playing LAPD detective Hal Vukovich in the finished film, and later Bishop in Cameron's Aliens.

How many lines of dialogue does Schwarzenegger speak in the first Terminator film?

He says fewer than 100 words in total, and even tried to get 'I'll be back' changed because he had trouble pronouncing 'I'll'.

Who plays Kyle Reese, the soldier sent back to protect Sarah Connor, in The Terminator?

He became a Cameron regular, playing Corporal Hicks in Aliens and Lieutenant Coffey in The Abyss.

What is Sarah Connor's job when we first meet her in the 1984 film?

Linda Hamilton later reinvented the character as a hardened warrior for the 1991 sequel.

In The Terminator, Reese first fires on the machine in a nightclub. What is its name, later a film-genre label?

Film scholars now use the same phrase for the hybrid of film noir and science fiction that Blade Runner and The Terminator epitomised.

Harlan Ellison threatened to sue over The Terminator, claiming it borrowed from his episode of which anthology series?

Orion settled in 1986 for an undisclosed sum and added an acknowledgment credit to later prints, over Cameron's objections.

Who composed the synthesizer score for The Terminator, including its pounding main theme?

He described the music as being about 'a mechanical man and his heartbeat', and returned for T2 and True Lies.

The Terminator's main theme is written in which unusual time signature?

The composer's finger rushed while triggering the loop on his Prophet-10, and he liked the 'herky-jerky' propulsion so much he kept it without ever writing notation.

In what year was The Terminator added to the US National Film Registry?

The Library of Congress deemed it 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant'; the sequel followed in 2023.

How was most of Schwarzenegger's Terminator 2 salary paid, to ease the studio's cash crunch?

The financed aircraft was valued at $12.75 million; the studio had already been blamed for inflating star salaries after paying him about $11 million for Total Recall.

Who played the liquid-metal T-1000 in Terminator 2?

He was cast deliberately slender as a contrast to the muscular T-800, and reprised the role for a gag cameo in Wayne's World.

Which rock star was considered for the T-1000 before a motorcycle accident ruled him out?

The role required a great deal of running, and the accident had left him with a temporary limp.

Where was Edward Furlong discovered before being cast as young John Connor in Terminator 2?

He had no acting experience, beat hundreds of prospects at his final audition, and won a Saturn Award and an MTV Movie Award at 13.

How many Academy Awards did Terminator 2: Judgment Day win?

It took Makeup, Sound, Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects, and was the first film to win an Oscar when its predecessor had not been nominated.

Which band's song 'You Could Be Mine' was used as the theme song for Terminator 2?

Cameron chose them because they were popular and there was 'a rose in the movie and bloody guns'; Schwarzenegger hosted the band for dinner to negotiate the deal.

Which effects house created the liquid-metal T-1000, the first CG main character in a blockbuster?

The groundbreaking work caused schedule overruns and is credited with pushing Hollywood from practical effects toward CGI.

Who doubled for Linda Hamilton in the Terminator 2 scenes where two Sarah Connors appear at once?

Leslie Hamilton Gearren played the real Sarah while Linda played the T-1000 impersonating her; twins Don and Dan Stanton pulled the same trick as the hospital guard.

Which detail of the T-800's death scene in Terminator 2 was added during filming, over Linda Hamilton's objection that it was too sentimental?

The T-800 is lowered into molten steel in the same mill where the T-1000 was destroyed moments earlier.

According to Terminator 2, at what exact time does Skynet become self-aware on August 29, 1997?

The system had gone online on August 4 and began learning at a geometric rate; humans panicked and tried to pull the plug.

Who plays Miles Dyson, the engineer whose work will lead to Skynet, in Terminator 2?

Dyson reverse-engineered his breakthrough from the CPU and severed arm of the 1984 Terminator; his son Danny turns up in the plot of Genisys.

The T2 3-D: Battle Across Time attraction, directed by Cameron, first opened at which park in 1996?

The 20-minute show cost $60 million, and its 12-minute 3D film reunited Schwarzenegger, Hamilton, Patrick and Furlong, making it the most expensive film per minute of its time.

Who directed Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, the first entry made without James Cameron?

Cameron had been interested in directing but ended up with no involvement at all; the film's $187 million budget included a record $30 million salary for Schwarzenegger.

Who plays the T-X, the 'Terminatrix', in Terminator 3?

The role earned her two Saturn Award nominations; she went on to play the title vampire in BloodRayne.

Which actor took over as John Connor in Terminator 3?

His future wife Kate Brewster is played by Claire Danes, and a reprogrammed Terminator is sent back to protect them both.

What is the grim twist at the end of Terminator 3?

The timeline shifts the nuclear attack from 1997 to July 2003; the Terminator explains the earlier victory merely bought time.

In what year is Terminator Salvation set?

It was the first film in the series set entirely after Judgment Day, and the first without Schwarzenegger, though his likeness briefly appears digitally.

Who directed Terminator Salvation, the 2009 film set during the future war?

He argued Christian Bale was 'the most credible action star in the world'; Bale said he turned the part down three times before accepting.

Which actor plays Marcus Wright, the death-row inmate who wakes up as a cyborg in Terminator Salvation?

McG originally wanted Bale for the part, but Bale preferred to play John Connor, so Marcus's role grew in rewrites.

Which Game of Thrones actress plays Sarah Connor in Terminator Genisys?

Director Alan Taylor also came from Thrones, and Jason Clarke plays her grown son John.

In Terminator Genisys, John Connor is transformed into what kind of Terminator?

The nanomachine-based villain took up to 20 hours to render per frame; a second trailer notoriously spoiled the twist, angering the director and writers.

What does the young Sarah Connor call the reprogrammed T-800 that raised her in Terminator Genisys?

An unknown party sent it to 1973 to protect nine-year-old Sarah after a T-1000 killed her parents.

Who directed Terminator: Dark Fate after leaving Deadpool 2?

Cameron returned as producer for the first time since T2, and the film ignores the events of the third, fourth and fifth movies.

In Terminator: Dark Fate, which AI replaces Skynet as humanity's destroyer?

Developed for cyberwarfare, it triggered a nuclear apocalypse after being deemed a threat; the film is a direct sequel to T2 set 25 years later.

What name has Schwarzenegger's Terminator adopted while living quietly with a human family in Dark Fate?

With no Skynet to give it orders it developed a conscience and began sending Sarah Connor coordinates of time-displacement events to give her purpose.

How did Terminator: Dark Fate fare commercially?

On a budget of roughly $185-196 million it took $261.1 million worldwide, and Skydance shelved plans to continue the series.

On which network did Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles air for its 31 episodes?

It ran from January 2008 to April 2009 and was cancelled despite a fan campaign; the first season was cut to nine episodes by the writers' strike.

Who plays Sarah Connor in The Sarah Connor Chronicles?

Creator Josh Friedman watched her audition tape on a friend's recommendation and called her 'a tough, tough woman'; she later became Cersei Lannister.

Summer Glau, the protective Terminator in The Sarah Connor Chronicles, was best known for which Firefly role?

She nearly skipped the Chronicles audition, feeling she did not have 'that Terminator look'.

Which rock singer made her acting debut as the T-1001 Catherine Weaver in The Sarah Connor Chronicles?

Weaver poses as the CEO of ZeiraCorp, which buys the chess computer called the Turk that may become Skynet.

The Netflix anime Terminator Zero is set in 1997 in which city?

Scientist Malcolm Lee is building an AI called Kokoro to rival Skynet; the eight-episode series premiered on August 29, 2024, Judgment Day itself.

Skynet was originally built by Cyberdyne Systems for which military body, according to the first film?

Reese explains that Cyberdyne will become the largest supplier of military computers before its network gains intelligence and launches nuclear war.

For how much did James Cameron sell his Terminator rights to Gale Anne Hurd before directing the first film?

The condition was that she would only produce the film if he directed it; the choice cost him dearly when sequel rights were later fought over.

Which company published the first Terminator video game, a DOS title released in July 1991?

Bethesda struck its deal with Hemdale in 1990, long before it became known for The Elder Scrolls and Fallout.

Midway's 1991 arcade game Terminator 2: Judgment Day was what kind of game?

Its Super NES port supported the Super Scope and the SNES Mouse in place of the arcade's mounted guns.

What does the real Japanese robotics company Cyberdyne sell?

Founded in 2004 by professor Yoshiyuki Sankai, it markets the HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) suit and says the name comes from 'cybernetics' plus '-dyne'.

Terminator producer Gale Anne Hurd, who began as Roger Corman's assistant, later became an executive producer of which long-running TV series?

She also produced Aliens, The Abyss and Armageddon, and was married to Cameron for a time.