Ridley Scott said he turned down $20 million to make “Terminator 3.”
“I’m proud about this. I turned down a $20 million fee. See, I can’t be bought, dude,” Scott said in an interview with The Guardian published Thursday.
The director went on to say that he inquired about how much the film’s star Arnold Schwarzenegger would get for a third film, though he ended up still turning the down the multi-million dollar offer.
“Someone said: ‘Ask what Arnie gets.’ I thought: ‘I’ll try it out.’ I said: ‘I want what Arnie gets.’ When they said yes, I thought: ‘F—k me.’ But I couldn’t do it, it’s not my thing,” the filmmaker, who is best known for directing the “Gladiator” franchise and “Alien,” explained.
He continued, sharing that he would have only ended up ruining the franchise because he’d want to make it “real”
“It’s like doing a ‘[James] Bond’ movie. The essence of a ‘Bond’ movie is fun and camp,” Scott explained. “‘Terminator’ is pure comic strip. I would try to make it real. That’s why they’ve never asked me to do a Bond movie, because I could f—k it up.”
Scott is just coming off the Colosseum floor after making “Gladiator 2,” which starred Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn and Denzel Washington. The film hit theaters in November 2024. The film banked $454 million at the box office, surpassing the original film’s $451 million.
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