Emilia Clarke has no plans to return to the “Terminator” franchise as Sarah Connor after starring in last summer’s “Terminator Genisys.”
“No,” Clarke told Comingsoon.net when asked if she would star in the sequels. “Can I say that? It’s OK. No. Uh-uh. But I have some very different roles coming up.”
Apart from starring as Daenerys Targaryen in HBO’s “Game of Thrones” for its sixth season, Clarke will also star in Warner Bros.’ “Me Before You,” the on-screen adaptation of Jojo Moyes’ bestseller.
“I read the book and it was just the most beautiful thing I had ever read,” she said. “I was shooting ‘Terminator’ at the time and had a rocket launcher in my hand while crying like a little girl. I felt like the author, Jojo Moyes, had found a part of me and just wrote it down. I knew that I just had to play the role.”
At TheWrap’s annual media leadership conference, The Grill, in October, Skydance chief creative officer Dana Goldberg weighed in on the future of the “Terminator” franchise following the disappointing domestic box office return for “Terminator: Genisys.”
The sequel with a budget of $155 million only grossed $89 million in North America when it was released last year, but other films in the franchise performed significantly better. “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” for example, grossed $204 million.
“I wouldn’t say on hold, so much as re-adjusting,” she said about the company’s plans to pursue a big-screen trilogy as well as a new TV series announced in late 2013. A “Genisys” sequel had been slated for release in May 2017, but Goldberg said “we are not going to begin production at the beginning of next year.”
“At Skydance, when we talk movies, we talk universes, even more than franchises,” Goldberg said about continuing the sci-fi saga across platforms. “So the idea of a ‘Terminator’ TV show fits into that universe. All the steps have to be taken in unison.”