In Sabotage, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays elite DEA task force agent John “Breacher” Wharton, whose team takes on the world’s deadliest drug cartels. But after the team successfully executes a high-stakes raid on a cartel safe house, they mysteriously start to be murdered, one by one, making everyone a suspect, including the team members themselves.
During the film’s press day, Collider was given the opportunity to sit down with the film’s star Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is truly reinvented by filmmaker David Ayer for this role, and while we will run what he had to say about Sabotage closer to the film’s March 28th release, we did want to share what he had to say about his upcoming roles, returning to the Terminator franchise, reprising his role as Conan for The Legend of Conan, and the Twins sequel, Triplets. In regard to Terminator, he said that the script for this Terminator film has the feel of Terminator 2, that they’ll start shooting in April in New Orleans, that he doesn’t yet know if it will be PG-13 or R, but that there will be hardcore action and some great visual effects, and that the title of the film is not yet official. Check out what he had to say after the jump.
Collider: What made you decide to return to the Terminator franchise, and what can fans of the franchise expect from it, this time around?
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: I think that it’s just so wild to have a franchise that has been around for that long, and then after 30 years, to get asked again to be the only character in a movie that is the same character is unheard of, in movie history. You always switch out, like with James Bond and Batman. They have new characters there. But, not here. That, to me, is an extraordinary situation and a great opportunity. Of course, I was honored when I was asked to come back and play the character with Sarah Connor. It was the same when Universal called and said, “We want to do the sequel to Twins.” That’s 25 years later, after it came out. And 34 or 35 years later, after doing Conan, they’ve come back and said that they want me to play Conan. Not to be one of the villains in Conan, like the usually do, but to play Conan.
It’s great because I’ve stayed in physical shape, and they see me in different movies and on social media and with all the stuff that I do. I’m still on the cover of the muscle magazines. So, they say, “We can still have this guy fight with a sword for 10 hours a day, do horseback riding, and all of these things. We can have him star in Conan.” It’s really unusual. That’s never, ever happened, that I’m aware of, in the history of these kinds of things, where you can lead a franchise like that and be the star, at this age. That just shows you that, if you have the attitude of a young person and you work like a young person and you keep your body in shape, and if you believe that you can do it, then you can actually make other people also believe that you can do it.
Have they told you whether Terminator will be a PG-13 or an R?
SCHWARZENEGGER: No. I don’t know.
Will it actually be called Terminator: Genesis?
SCHWARZENEGGER: I don’t know what the final title is going to be. As you can see with Sabotage, when I read the script, it was called Ten. You never know. Today, studios switch titles because everything has been tested. They’ll give an audience five titles, and then they’ll pick one. But Terminator is going to have the exact same feel. The way it reads, it has the same feel of Terminator 2. It’s big. There’s hardcore action and it has some really great visual effects in there, but not over the top. It’s not a Thor type of movie, even though it’s the same director. It has good special effects, but just enough to say, “Wow, where did that come from? How did they do that?”
When do you start shooting?
SCHWARZENEGGER: We start shooting at the end of April in New Orleans. You should come and visit the set.
Are you hoping to do more comedy, too?
SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes, with Triplets. There will be more comedy.