Aintitcool.com is reporting a piece of casting that, if it's true, could be the most surprising of the year – hell, maybe even the decade. The site is saying they've heard from a reliable source that Christian Bale will play John Connor in McG's Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins.
Take a second to process that. This is a movie directed by one of the most derided men making films, following on from a movie that most Terminator fans weren't especially keen on and almost certainly not starring original Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger. But Bale doesn't sign up for garbage. So could this be...good? Or even great?
We stress again, this casting should not be taken as fact until an official announcement, but we'd imagine that the script Bale would sign up for would have to be pretty good and that McG would have to have some interesting ideas on where to take the series in order to tempt Bale. The difference in age between T3's Nick Stahl and Bale indicates the movie will be starting a long time after the end of the last one.
Bale's already helped reinvigorate one apparently dead franchise. Could he bring another back to life?
UPDATE: In contrast to aintitcool's report, CHUD is reporting here that their source tells them that Bale is actually in line for the role of the new terminator, with Arnie no longer on board. That we can see. Bale's got the bulk and anyone who's ever seen American Psycho will know he can do cold-eyed and terrifying. If this version of casting is true, we'll be a lot more excited and a lot less confused. In fact, that would be an incredibly good choice.