Linda Hamilton has played Sarah Connor since 1984’s The Terminator but won’t be returning for another film. More on her comments below.
We’ve known for a while now that James Cameron is keen on writing another Terminator film. Last May, Cameron appeared at a Dell Technologies conference and revealed he is indeed working on a new Terminator script, but has paused work on it while he observed how real-world AI develops.
A new Terminator film would be exciting (potentially), but it would have to happen without Linda Hamilton.
The star, who has played Sarah Connor, the mother of John Connor, in three feature films, recently told Business Insider that she has no plans to return to the role that made her name almost 40 years ago.
“I’m done,” Hamilton said. “I’m done. I have nothing more to say. The story’s been told, and it’s been done to death.”
“Why anybody would relaunch it is a mystery to me. But I know our Hollywood world is built on relaunches right now,” she added and we must admit, she has a point.
Hamilton also said she struggles to understand why people glorify Sarah Connor.
“I truly feel like, and felt like, Sarah Connor is not an icon. She’s a woman in hell. She makes some really bad choices. She’s not a good mother, she’s a good fighter!” she told the outlet..
Hamilton last played Sarah Connor in 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate. The film was a box office bomb and at the time, any plans for further sequels were cancelled. In the wake of all that, James Cameron came offered his own explanation for the film’s slow ticket sales: the age of returning stars Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Cameron said in late 2022: “I think what happened is I think the movie could have survived having Linda in it, I think it could have survived having Arnold in it, but when you put Linda and Arnold in it and then, you know, she’s 60 something, he’s 70 something, all of a sudden it wasn’t your Terminator movie, it wasn’t even your dad’s Terminator movie, it was your granddad’s Terminator movie. And we didn’t see that.”
Where there’s a will, there’s a way, though, and it looks as though we might still have more Terminator in our future. Just don’t expect to see Linda Hamilton fight a T-800 again anytime soon.
Read more: Linda Hamilton interview | Terminator Dark Fate, and bringing Sarah Connor back
