Instead, it stars Christian Bale and Sam Worthington with Anton Yelchin, Moon Bloodgood, Bryce Dallas Howard, Common, Michael Ironside, and Helena Bonham Carter in supporting roles.

After troubled pre-production, with the Halcyon Company acquiring the rights from Andrew G. Vajna and Mario Kassar, and with several writers working on the screenplay, filming began in May 2008 in New Mexico, and ran for 77 days.

While originally intended to be the first installment of a second Terminator trilogy, these plans were canceled following the Halcyon Company filing for bankruptcy after the film's release.

The franchise rights were sold in 2012 to Annapurna Pictures, resulting in Terminator Genisys, a reboot of the series, being released in 2015 with Schwarzenegger reprising his role.

[4] In 2003, Dr. Serena Kogan of Cyberdyne Systems convinces death row inmate Marcus Wright to sign over his body for medical research following his execution.

Sometime later, the automated Skynet system is activated, becomes self-aware, and perceives humans as a threat to its existence, starting a nuclear holocaust known as "Judgment Day".

[b] In 2018, John Connor leads an attack on a Skynet base where he discovers schematics of human prisoners being incorporated as living tissue for a new Terminator: the T-800.

[citation needed] Following the release of Terminator 3 in 2003, producers Andrew G. Vajna and Mario Kassar contracted Nick Stahl and Claire Danes to return as John Connor and Kate Brewster in another film.

[40] Director Jonathan Mostow helped develop the script, written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris, and was set to begin production in 2005 after completing another film.

In response to whether or not Nolan would receive a writing credit for his contribution, McG went on to say, "I don't know how the WGA rules work, but honest to goodness, we did the heaviest lifting with Jonah.

[5] The friendship between Marcus—who was executed (for murder) when humanity still ruled the world—and Kyle Reese illustrates how war and suffering can bring out the best in people, such as when they worked together to survive during the Blitz.

[75] In addition to Bale breaking his hand and Worthington hurting his back, special effects technician Mike Menardis almost lost his leg filming an explosion.

[48] McG cited Mad Max 2, the original Star Wars trilogy and Children of Men, as well as the novel The Road, as his visual influences.

Originally, McG wanted to hire Gustavo Santaolalla to work on the music for the human characters, while having either Thom Yorke or Jonny Greenwood compose Skynet's themes.

[92] All music is composed by Danny Elfman except "Rooster".On July 16, 2008, Warner Bros. debuted the film's teaser trailer on Yahoo!, accompanied by a voiceover by Christian Bale's character of John Connor.

The Blu-ray features both the theatrical cut and the R-rated Director's cut, which is three minutes longer (118 minutes), with bonus material including Maximum Movie Mode, a video commentary in which director McG talks about the film while it plays, featurettes, a video archive, and a digital comic of the first issue of the official film prequel comic.

[139] Likewise, Claudia Puig of USA Today gave the film two out of four stars and called it "predictable" with the "dramatic elements flat-lin[ing]".

"[141] Devin Faraci of Empire also gave a positive rating of four out of five stars, saying: "McG has sparked a moribund franchise back to life, giving fans the post-apocalyptic action they've been craving since they first saw a metal foot crush a human skull two decades ago.

Furthermore, he expressed that the third act was when the film began falling apart, saying, "McG and Nolan muddied the end of the picture, delivering action generics (yet another Terminator fight in a factory) while never finding their own hook that would give this movie more of an impact than you would get from an expanded universe novel.

"[143] In contrast, James Berardinelli considered the ending the best part of the film, feeling that the first two-thirds were "rambling and disjointed" and that the lack of a central villain was only fixed when the T-800 appeared.

[148] In Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy, Matthew Alford argued that with the fourth installment, "the franchise had made a clear shift towards supporting establishment narratives, despite its earlier reservations" and that a "central theme" is whether John Connor "should prioritise striking a decisive military blow against the machines or rescue some captured humans, who are entombed—with shades of Auschwitz—by the Terminators".

Alford concludes that "for a world that is set just fifteen years after a global nuclear holocaust the survivors are fancifully healthy, not to mention hairy" and that this "normalises the unthinkable".

[162] Bale apologized publicly and said he reconciled his differences with Hurlbut, stating that he dislikes it when takes are ruined, and that after the incident took place they continued to work together for a number of hours that day.

[163] Eight colleagues in the film industry including his mother, Whoopi Goldberg, Darren Aronofsky, Judi Dench, Ron Howard (Bryce's father), Michael Caine, Christopher Nolan and Sharon Stone defended Bale, attributing the incident to his dedication to acting.

[169] Further complications occurred on May 20, 2009, when executive producer Peter D. Graves, who informed Anderson and Kubicek about the Terminator rights, filed a breach-of-contract claim for arbitration, alleging that they owe him $750,000.

[1] While Terminator Salvation was initially intended to begin a new trilogy, production of a fifth film was halted by legal trouble, as well as The Halcyon Company filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

[174] In late October 2009, Halcyon announced it would auction off the rights to future Terminator material and was seeking $60–70 million, though the only offer made was by director Joss Whedon for $10,000.

After studios Sony Pictures and Lionsgate bid separately, Pacificor, the hedge fund that pushed Halcyon into bankruptcy, made a deal for $29.5 million.

[181][182] On February 16, 2011, it was announced that Universal Studios was considering a fifth Terminator film with Arnold Schwarzenegger returning as the star and with Fast Five's Justin Lin directing along with Chris Morgan as the screenwriter.

[183] On April 27, 2011, it was announced that a rights package to a Terminator film, to which Schwarzenegger, Lin, and producer Robert W. Cort were attached, but no screenwriter, had been circulating among the studios.