Director Tim Miller sat down for an interview with Variety ahead of the Terminator: Dark Fate panel at this month’s San Diego Comic-Con.
During this interview, he was questioned about the enigmatic soldier assassin character “Grace” who Mackenzie Davis plays in the upcoming film. He described how before the screenwriting process even started, a panel of novelists were brought in to plan out details of the film. One was Joe Abercrombie (author of the First Law series), who pointed out that the Terminator films tend to have a trinity of main characters. One of those is the protector, the “Kyle Reese” character. This led to the following line of thought:
“Joe came out with this idea that a new protector from the future is a machine fighter. It’s a painful life, and they’re scarred and take a lot of drugs to combat the pain of what’s been done to them. They don’t live a long time. It’s a very sacrificial role; they risk death to save others. And from the very first suggestion it was always a woman. We had to look for someone who has the physicality, but I’m very sensitive to actors. I didn’t just want a woman who could physically fit the role but emotionally as well. Mackenzie really wanted to do it; she came after the role. She worked harder than anybody.”
Miller believes Grace will play well for the audience, and preemptively told misogynistic complainers to screw off. Terminator: Dark Fate marks franchise creator James Cameron’s return to the series after sitting out multiple sequels – and this film will not be acknowledging the events of the sequels Cameron wasn’t around for, making it a direct follow-up to the second film, Judgement Day.
Terminator: Dark Fate arrives in theatres on November 1st this year. All I can say to the production team is do your best, and make a movie that’s good enough to silence the haters and sway the unbelievers. Otherwise… well, it’ll be business as usual.