When director McG (Joseph McGinty Nichol) finishes filming Terminator Salvation (Terminator Renaissance) (2009), he thinks he has made a good film that will delight fans of the franchise.
It has Christian Bale and Sam Worthington, two talented actors, in the leading roles, Jonathan Nolan came to retouch the script. All the lights appear green. A scene from the film was even previewed at Comic-Con and the audience was thrilled.
When the film is completed, tests are carried out at Warner Bros. studios. The film is shown to company employees to get a first life-size feedback.
The first tests went well, but McG wanted to find out for sure and invited a few Terminator fans he chose on dedicated forums.
And it is when these fans leave the screening that the verdict on the film will truly fall.
“The fans didn’t like the film… McG confided years later. With Jeff Robinov [former director of Warner], we understood that it was over. We looked at each other and said at the same time: Fuck! »
The film was not a flop, but it generated just enough money to cover its costs, which was considered a failure by the studio.
McG will try to understand why he was wrong and will end up assuming that the ending of the film wasn’t strong enough.
Two different endings of the film were shot, and the more optimistic of the two was ultimately chosen.
In retrospect, McG will be convinced that the other, darker ending would have given the film more depth and bite.
In this alternate ending, John Connor dies, and his body is then used as an outer shell by Marcus (who is a machine). All the heroes then come to see John Connor’s remains, but Marcus takes advantage of the opportunity to kill them all.
The resistance failed, Skynet won. END.
Christian Bale was also in favor of this ending, but McG and the studio were ultimately afraid of ending on such a dark note. Which limited the possibilities of making sequels…