Saviour Of Humanity

Sarah Connor's dead and Edward Furlong's 'issues' have led to his being replaced as future world-saviour John Connor. But none of this matters because Arnie's back and the next Terminator film starts shooting on April 15. Terminator 3: Rise of The Machines or so it is thought to be called, will once again see Arnold's metal killing machine returning but to battle who or what nobody seems to know. Vin Diesel's ever-increasing schedule may rule him out and Arnold is in no hurry to clear up the mystery. However, talking to Sci Fi Wire, the brawny Austrian did have a few nuggets to share about the film's central characters. "[Sarah Connor] is in the movie as flashbacks and stuff like that, but I think they felt like they didn't want to have the exact same cast and have them be limited with the story, but really take certain people out. Just let's assume that she has died already." The idea, apparently, is to give the now grown up John Connor a measure of independence, enough to let his future as humanity's saviour begin to emerge. According to Schwarzenegger, John is "on his own, rather than having still the mother there, whining away, saying, 'Get it straight. You have to be the saviour. You can't do this, and you can't date this girl.' Jonathan [Mostow] was very adamant [that] he wanted the kid now to be 22 or 23, the mother's died, and let's move on. Let's have him be on his own. Let's have him have a girlfriend. And let's go to the next level. So that was the idea." While originally keen to see James Cameron return to helm the film, Arnold has now given his wholehearted approval to Cameron's successor, Jonathan Mostow. "First of all, Cameron was not interested in doing the movie, because he felt like he does not want to tie himself down to any time schedule, period, on any movie. So the next thing was, let's find someone that is young and that has this young spirit of new ideas and all that. And when we saw the submarine movie Jonathan did, U-571, we all felt that he had the kind of talent and patience and know-how to work with special effects, visual effects and all of that. He's been extremely good at prepping the movie and reworking the script." Terminator 3 will hit cinema's in 2003.