With two bombs under their belt, the Terminator producers are right now going to be counting up the figures and wondering where exactly the audiences have gone, and why the people who loved the original trilogy didn't show up for Genisys. Well, the simple fact is that audiences have changed, along with the cinematic landscape, while the Terminator movies appear stuck firmly in the past. After Salvation failed to drum up much support for a Terminator movie about the Future War, the franchise's producers made a conscious decision to go backwards. Back to 1984, back to the romance between Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese and a Terminator being sent on the same old mission, in the hope they could claw back former fans. Trading on audience nostalgia is a cynical move, but it does often work; not so for the Terminator movies, however, which don't quite have the contemporary cultural cache of, say, Star Wars. Furthermore, making Genisys a nostalgic, '80s-set 12A reboot of the 18-rated Terminator seems nonsensical, especially when the youngest audience members at the time will now be approaching their 50s and likely have no interest in seeing their formerly adult franchise turned into family-friendly spectacle.
Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1
