Not content with appearing in just one big science fiction franchise re-working, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes’ Jason Clarke now has his eye on fighting that other big threat to humanity: the machines. Clarke, probably best known for Zero Dark Thirty, is in talks to play John Connor in the Terminator reboot, **Genesis.
Thor: The Dark World (and Game Of Thrones veteran) director Alan Taylor is calling the shots, working from a script by Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier. The plot is largely being kept quiet, though it may well follow much of the basics of James Cameron’s original (wo)man vs. machine narratives with a few changes here and there (particularly if the intent is to launch a TV series to run alongside it).
Connor, of course, is the heroic leader of the human resistance, the man who must help us battle Skynet and stop the species becoming a footnote that is deleted because the technological terrors are really good at using both weapons and Wikipedia.
He’s the son of Sarah Connor, made iconic by Linda Hamilton in the original and possibly to be played in the new version by either Emilia Clarke or Brie Larson, though casting has still not been locked down there. The casting of either would mean, incidentally, that we're definitely looking at a story split across two different timelines, as there ain't no way either of them plays Clarke's mum otherwise.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is also linked with his memorable role, though our big theory is that he plays the scientist who works on the Terminator cyborgs and either creates them in his image or is forced to. We’ll see how it all shakes out when Paramount brings Terminator: Genesis to cinemas on June 26, 2015.