Though he won't be appearing in the latest installment of the Terminator franchise, Arnold Schwarzenegger can still be considered involved, at least as an authority on the series. Unfortunately, as such an authority, he's apparently confused and underwhelmed by the early footage he's seen of Terminator Salvation. According to the Los Angeles Times, the "Governator" was recently given a private screening of scenes from the sequel -- either the same as or similar to the stuff shown at Comic-Con. In response, Schwarzenegger reportedly said: "They showed me some footage, but I don't have a feel for the movie. I didn't see enough. I wasn't sure who the Terminator was. I don't know if there is one or if he's the star or the hero. These are the things that determine the success and how strong the movie will be."

Well, that isn't so negative. Schwarzenegger is merely unsure of what's going on in the movie after seeing scattered sequences. Why nobody told him the basic plot is unclear, and it is strange he'd have no clue if any of the characters he was watching were Terminators or not. Still, that's not his fault nor a specific problem with the footage. However, the way he seemed to shrug it off and wish the filmmakers well is unfortunate. Meanwhile, he's claiming how much he loves Wanted and Will Ferrell movies, including Step Brothers and Semi-Pro and getting excited about this summer's box office numbers. But Terminator Salvation? He just says that if it's good it could break records and hopes it will make a lot of money, acting as if he might not even see it.

Despite the California governor's seemingly less-than-thrilled reaction, I remain excited about the fourth Terminator movie.

[via Rotten Tomatoes]

UPDATE: Teaser online now above (and over at Yahoo!). Whaddya think?

Cinematical has been informed that the first teaser trailer for Terminator Salvation will most likely arrive tonight, around 9pm EST. Where? We do not know yet. Cinematical reader RossBond alerted us to the fact that Warner Bros. has sent out satellite coordinates for the worldwide trailer debut, and the time given for said coordinates is tonight between 9pm and 9:15pm EST. Additionally, there's also a 15-minute time slot tomorrow morning at 6am EST. However, if I were a betting man, I'd say the trailer will hit tonight. Fun stuff!

Here's the film's synopsis: In the highly anticipated new installment of The Terminator film franchise, set in post-apocalyptic 2018, Christian Bale stars as John Connor, the man fated to lead the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators. But the future Connor was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet's operations, where they uncover the terrible secret behind the possible annihilation of mankind.

We're on it, and we'll let you know when we hear more ...

A number of sources are reporting that pioneering make-up, special effects, and animatronics wizard Stan Winston has died at age 62 -- far too soon. No word yet on cause of death.

The word "legend" gets tossed around a lot when famous people die, but Stan Winston is a legend. He brought to life the Terminator, Jurassic Park's dinosaurs, Predator, Edward Scissorhands, and the Penguin, just to name a few. Even now, when one would think the advent of CGI would have started to make him obsolete, his practical effects genius got him work on movies like Iron Man and the forthcoming Terminator Salvation. I guess it was inevitable that in the age of computers, Winston would go from creating wonders to perfecting them. But Iron Man owes a great deal to him. He kept Tony Stark from looking silly in that metal suit.

Far from being obsolete, Stan Winston is irreplaceable. Movie lovers will never forget him.

Screw this; I'm going home. On the first day of production, the people footing the bill for Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins have announced that the future is actually ending prematurely, as the violent, perennially R-rated franchise is going PG-13 for its fourth installment. The reason? I'll bet you can guess. In addition to "broadening the audience base," the producers are hoping for (or have already signed; it's not really clear) a merchandising deal with Playmates Toys. Dear God. Clearly, they're trying to bring about a fanboy mass suicide.

Maybe it's not yet time to panic. After all, I still managed to have a blast with last year's PG-13 Live Free or Die Hard, and that franchise, what with John McClane's penchant for the f-bomb, was arguably even more dependent on the freedom of the R than Terminator. And with a few exceptions (that unforgettable shot of the T-1000 disguised as John Connor's mom impaling Xander Berkeley on its pointy metal arm comes to mind), the reasons the Terminator films -- Judgment Day in particular -- are so disturbing have little to do with heavy violence; Robert Patrick rising out of the linoleum floor is scarier than any amount of gore could be. The MPAA is surely tone-deaf enough to censor the blood but let the really scary stuff through. And anyway, as the producers point out in the article, the PG-13 ain't what it used to be.

It was already pretty well known that Arnold Schwarzenegger would not be appearing in the next installment of the Terminator series, unless the filmmakers managed to get him to pop up in some silly cameo. Now, Empire Magazine has gotten Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins producer Moritz Borman to talk about exactly how, if at all, Schwarzenegger will figure into the new trilogy of films. "It's convenient that he [The Arnold Terminator] hasn't been built at this point of the story, as Arnold has more important things to do right now, but that doesn't mean he might not re-appear later in the trilogy," Borman says. He also claims that Schwarzenegger has been briefed about this project, stating that "He knows the material and is very supportive of what we're doing. There might even be hints of his character in this one."

That makes sense to me, but it does create some issues that will have to be solved in the future -- if Schwarzenegger suddenly becomes re-involved with the series five or six years from now, he'll be well into his 60s and won't look anything like his muscular self, so how will he factor in? Will he play some old Austrian scientist who creates the T800 line of Terminators and models them after his younger self? And how will the movies show us a T800 if that means showing us young Arnold? Actually, I think this wouldn't be a problem -- have you seen Terminator lately? The T800s in the future segments of that movie barely look like Arnold anyway. They look like Michael Myers, if anything, with big latex faces. Like Michael Biehn says, they were easy to spot as non-human.

Unfortunately, lots of posters these days don't amount to much. Either they're too run-of-the-mill, or they use so much damn airbrushing that it looks like Robert Zemeckis took over production and live captured the whole movie, instead of it being a plain-jane live-action film. Everyone once in a while, a simple one surfaces that just seems to get it -- often with Steve Carrell. (The 40-Year-Old Virgin poster was brilliant, and the Get Smart poster, which we premiered yesterday, isn't too shabby either.) And then sometimes, just sometimes, the posters just plain rock.

If the four pics that Entertainment Weekly just released of The Sarah Connor Chronicles are any indication of the show's content, this sucker should be great. Making a show based on Terminator is all sorts of tricky, but man, they knew how to cast. The first poster has Summer Glau, probably one of the coolest fighters ever, in all of her robot glory. Then there's Lena Headey channeling Linda Hamilton with that tough tank and bulging veins. And then, delightfully, more Glau. There's one with her naked torso, boobage covered by her hair (see pic to the right), and another where her skin is burned away to show the machine below.

I think the lesson is simple. For the most part, the simpler, the better. Sometimes studios try so hard to make it look cool, that any appealing potential gets stripped away. There's a reason why posters like these work -- they take the best of what the movie has to offer, or in this case a show, and lets it speak for itself. That being said, I wonder why Thomas Dekker doesn't appear in any of them?

As much as you might cringe about more Terminator sequels (or yay if you're a huge fan), it was pretty much inevitable. The series made the phrase "I'll be back" epic, it's all about machines coming back from a future war and apocalypse (which leaves lots of territory to be covered), and movie companies love their sequels, especially when the franchise has a few huge flicks under its belt. So, of course, besides Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, we're getting Terminator 4. This isn't the first bit of news on the production. There's been models, lawsuits, and even one juicy rumor about Rachel Weisz and Chloe Sevigny. Now IGN has got some more scoop from the television series' consulting producer, James Middleton.

We already know that T3 writers Michael Ferris and John D. Brancato wrote the script, and now it seems the flick is in the pre-summer '08 push, even though the film still doesn't have a director (although Middleton says they're close). Halcyon aims to have the flick in pre-production next month, and release the sci-fi extravaganza in 2009. Why so long? Well, we are talking about the franchise finally dealing with the machine war, which means lots of special effects. The plan is to make this a trilogy, covering the future we've been waiting a few decades to see. That's cool, so long as it doesn't completely fizzle like The Matrix Trilogy did.

While John and Kate are in the script, there is no word on whether Nick Stahl or Claire Danes will return, and they're not the focus anyway, which may make or break this endeavor. The movie features a new heroic main character. Unless it's a cybertronic Joe Morton, coming back to fix his technological mistakes, I'm not so sure about this. Middleton, however, is talking it up: "Ben-Hur was influenced by Jesus Christ, but it was his story. Much in that way, this character will be influenced by John Connor." Do you want to see the war with the machines on the big screen, and is this the way they should go about doing it?

Has any writer ever gotten through an article about the Terminator series without making an "I'll be back" reference? I'm going to give it a shot. As Scott told you a few months back, the merchandising, licensing and film rights to the Terminator franchise were recently sold from producing partners Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna (how'd you like to go through high school with that last name?) to a company called Halcyon. Halcyon formed a corporation called T Asset to make Terminator 4, aiming for a Summer 2009 release. T3 screenwriters Michael Ferris and John Brancato were brought on to write the script. The studio even has designs on making T4 the first film in a whole new Terminator trilogy. But yesterday, Halcyon filed a lawsuit accusing MGM of "wrongful and malicious threats to disrupt T Asset's absolute right to negotiate with other motion picture studios regarding the distribution of T Asset's planned production and distribution of the fourth sequel in the highly valuable Terminator franchise."

So what does that all mean in layman's terms? In a nutshell, T Asset wants MGM to butt out. MGM is claiming that they had "the right to an exclusive 30-day first negotiation with respect to the distribution of T4." Negotiations went over 30 days. T Asset says MGM's negotiating period is expired, MGM disagrees. Boom, pow, you got yourself a Hollywood lawsuit. T Asset also accuses MGM of including the assumed financial success of T4 in economic projections that MGM is using to raise money. Apparently MGM is so high on the prospect of Terminator gold, they offered nearly $200 million dollars for the production and advertising of T4 on June 14th. Look, I love the Terminator movies (the first two anyway), but does anyone really think T4 will be as big a smash as previous installments? James Cameron leaving after T2 hit the series pretty hard, but at least T3 still had Schwarzenegger and it made money. All we know about the cast of T4 is that Marcus Schenkenberg is in it (PLEASE don't let him take over for Arnold), and that name's not going to light up a marquee. IMDb has Edward Furlong rumored to be attached, and I certainly hope they're not banking on Mr. Brainscan putting asses in the seats. They'd have to really up the ante on special effects or something to make this proposed trilogy something that will excite the public. I'm going to grab a sandwich and give this some thought. But...I'll be back. Damn it.

Former producing partners Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna have sold the merchandising, licensing and film rights to The Terminator to another pair of partners who are just now dipping their toes into the movie biz. (The price tag was not mentioned.) According to Variety, a company called Halcyon now owns the property, and they're planning to re-ignite the franchise without the involvement of James Cameron or Arnold Schwarzenegger. A pair of people who are still connected to Terminator 4 are screenwriters Michael Ferris and John Brancato, who also wrote Terminator 3 and have the T4 script already finished and under lock and key.

In related news, that Sarah Connor Chronicles series, which is also an offshoot of The Terminator, is still moving along quite well. Word is that Fox might announce the pick-up sooner rather than later. But back to the movie stuff: It looks like the fourth Terminator movie will focus on a thirty-ish John Connor as he struggles through a bleak future while inspiring people to fight back against the amazingly evil robots. But John should already know that, only a few years down the line, he'll be sending Michael Biehn back in time to protect Linda Hamilton from The Terminator. Yeah, so between the new TV series and this proposed movie trilogy (yes, trilogy), I'm guessing we'll have a lot to talk about, Terminator-wise, over the next few years.

It was just a little under a month ago that there was news from The Terminator TV spin-off The Sarah Connor Chronicles. At the time, fans were asking what part Serenity's Summer Glau had signed on for. Sci Fi Wire recently spoke with Lena Headey (300), who plays the Terminator "matriarch" Sarah Connor and she confirmed that Glau was hired to play one of the Terminators for the show. That's right, there's not one but two Terminators. Headey told Sci Fi Wire that Glau is playing one and Owain Yeoman will be playing the other. Sci Fi Wire also reported that during their chat with Headey she also told them "One is good and one is bad; she didn't say which is which."

The show picks up where the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day left off. Headey described the pilot, saying, "it's them basically running, hiding, trying to live, trying to carve out a normal life for themselves, but always being watched and trying to locate Skynet, trying to stop [it]. But there are many, many issues in their way." The pilot was scheduled for 2007, so since shooting has wrapped it won't be long before fans get to find out just what kind of Terminator Summer Glau is going to be.