The Terminator franchise is making a comeback, but as an anime series for Netflix.
During the streamer’s Geeked Week event, it showed a small teaser for the upcoming series. Heading up production will be The Batman Part II’s Mattson Tomlin leading writing duties, while Masashi Kudo (a character designer on Bleach will direct the eight-episode series. Production I.G ( which worked on Star Wars Visions and the upcoming Kaiju No.8) will handle the show’s animation.
Like other entries in the sci-fi series, the Terminator anime will focus on a soldier from the Human-Machine War being sent back in time to prevent it. In this case, an unnamed female soldier from the dystopian future of 2022 is blasted back to 1997 in order to protect Malcolm Lee, a scientist working on a new AI system meant to compete with Skynet, the series’ original AI threat that’s already working on how to start Judgment Day and attack humanity. As Lee and the soldier run from the Terminator that’s also been sent back in time to kill him, the events will take a noticeable toll on his three children.
Terminator has been all over the place as a franchise ever since the second film all the way back in 1991. Some sequels have been stronger than others, but the underperformance of 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate made it more clear than ever the series needed to be retired, or at the very least, shelved until it could do more than just be merely watchable. This is the first animated venture for the franchise, and its second TV series overall; some may recall Fox’s short-lived Terminator: Sarah Chronicles show, which was wiped from canon after either Terminator: Genisys or Dark Fate came out.
The Terminator anime will hit Netflix in the near future. If this ends up being not your cup of tea, good news: James Cameron is taking a break from his busy Na’vi schedule to pen a full-on reboot for the franchise…just as soon as he figures out what recent AI trends and events to use to inform his script.