James Cameron's classic The Terminator has a perfectly bittersweet ending that more than anything else sets up the tone of the franchise. But it was almost something completely different, according to producer Gale Anne Hurd, because studio reps all think audiences want a happy ending. That may be true in a broader sense, but you can't/shouldn't always give them what they want.
While attending ScreamFest, Hurd, who is now a big shot producer on The Walking Dead but was a newbie at the time of The Terminator, said the studio's notes called for audiences to leave the film in a much cheerier mood.
“We got notes to end [‘The Terminator’] before the end of the film,” Hurd said. “Not even have the Terminator rise out as the endoskeleton, but just end with Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor hugging.”
Yuck. I have a feeling if that would've happened we might not have seen a Terminator 2 at all. Fortunately, Hurd had the sand to fight back against the studio's proposed changes, and plenty of help from others who backed Cameron's vision for the film...
“I mean, your first movie and you’re telling people, ‘No, you’re wrong.’ It’s not an easy thing to do,” she said. “There are also more unsung heroes which is that one of our strongest supporters was the head of the completion bond company, Film Finances here in Los Angeles,” Hurd said. “The late Lindsley Parsons Sr. knew what The Terminator was going to be. Roger [Corman] knew what ‘The Terminator’ was going to be and not a lot of people did. You absolutely need people to believe in you. You also need people to tell you when you’re screwing up that you can listen to. Lindsley was all of that. Roger has always been all of that, but we could have bowed to the pressure. Or, we could have been wrong and not listened to the things that made the film better. Luckily we had each other’s backs.”
And the rest is history, A sixth Terminator film is in production right now and set to open on November 15th 2019. [Slashfilm]
