Christian Bale wishes he’d never made Terminator: Salvation.
And he’s not the only one.
During an interview with the Happy Sad Confused Podcast, the 43-year-old actor revealed exactly how much he regret making the critically-maligned Terminator sequel… and that he actually turned it down several times.
“I said no three times,” he explained. “I thought that the franchise… I went ‘Nah, there’s no story there.’ I’d seen the first one and enjoyed that back in England, I’d been to the movies and seen the second one.”
Of course, the Terminator franchise has seen some real belters, beginning with the original Terminator back in 1984 and followed up with the smash hit, Terminator 2: Judgement Day in 1991. But after a lacklustre third instalment in 2003, the studio was keen to get Terminator back on track with an impressive fourth movie.
Why did Terminator Salvation turn out so badly?
Christian Bale believes it’s all down to an untimely writer’s strike.
“It was an unfortunate series of events involving the writers’ strike, involving [Jonathan] Nolan, who was able to come on, and really start to write a wonderful script, but then got called away for a prior commitment that he had.”
Terminator: Salvation saw Christian Bale taking up the role of John Connor… and it seems that he regrets not being able to turn the franchise around at this point.
“It’s a great thorn in my side, because I wish we could have reinvigorated [the franchise],” he explained. “And unfortunately, during production, you could tell that wasn’t happening. It’s a great shame.”
After turning down the role several times, Bale also admits that there was an element of stubbornness in why he eventually starred in Terminator: Salvation… despite being warned that it wasn’t going to work out.
“There’s a perverse side to me, where people were telling me that, there’s no way on God’s Earth that I should take that role, and I was thinking the same thing,” Bale added. “But when people started verbalising that to me, I started to go, ‘Oh really? All right, well watch this then.’ So, there was a little bit of that involved in the choice.”
Terminator: Salvation stars Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Moon Bloodgood, Helena Bonham Carter, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Anton Yelchin.
McG directed the movie, based on a script by John Brancato and Michael Ferris.
Terminator: Salvation was released on 3 June 2009
