July 2,2003
http://www.comingsoon.net/movies/t/t3.php
Last shot down to a T
01may03
LEGENDARY action hero Schwarzenegger hopes Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines will return him to Hollywood mega-stardom, reports MICHAEL McKENNA from Los Angeles.
Arnold Schwarzenegger peers through the smoke, his still-massive frame laden with enough guns to equip a small army, and fires off a sequel to his now-legendary Terminator line "I'll be back".
With the familiar steely gaze, the muscleman-turned-movie Goliath delivers the inevitable twist to his cyborg nemesis for T3 (it's a girl!) with the warning: "She'll be back".
Three words, 12 years and $48 million later (plus a percentage of profits) and Schwarzenegger is every bit back to the iconic Terminator who used to slay 'em at the box-office. Even if he is a little on the chunky side.
It's a final take one of Hollywood's highest-paid stars is happy to put "in the can" to end the long day's shoot.
There's only one problem – the camera wasn't rolling.
Cut to Schwarzenegger, who seemed frozen in his cyborg character for the previous nine hours, and the sound of his very human temper tantrum echoes out the door of the sound studio in downtown Los Angeles.
An awkward silence fills the room, peopled mostly with crew who have only ever watched a Terminator movie, mortified at having angered their star and pay provider with such unprofessionalism – and, to add insult to injury, while he was delivering the trademark line.
But ever the pro, the 55-year-old former Mr Universe returns, calmer, to a blanket of apologies and shoots eight more takes before "a wrap" is called.
It's been a long day and the frustration is showing.
Schwarzenegger had spent the previous four hours with actor Nick Stahl and Aussie-based co-star Claire Danes filming take after take after take of the trio dragging a wounded soldier up a 10m-long hallway.
Hardly, the blow-'em-up kind of fun expected during the making of a $266 million action movie.
On these days, Schwarzenegger knows it's just him and not the special effects that must carry the film.
Gone is James Cameron, creator and director of the first two Terminator films, who secured his own and Schwarzenegger's superstar status among the Hollywood glitterati.
A friend and constant collaborator (both are now mapping out a sequel to their 1990 hit, Total Recall), Cameron was too frustrated with the delays in the Terminator 3 (or T3 , as it's known) project to sign on.
In his place as director is Jonathan Mostow, the lesser-known director of U-571, bringing an outsider's eye to T3 that, even in the mundane, seemingly outstrips the legendary fastidiousness of Cameron.
"It's very strange [without Cameron] because it's his creation, his baby. But, you know, I couldn't wait and no one else could wait for him to say 'OK, let's do the movie'," Schwarzenegger says.
"Mostow measures up. He has a lot of talent, he's very organised and has a great command of the script.
"And even though sometimes it's take after take, he really waits until he gets exactly what he wants."
And what Mostow, Schwarzenegger and the German backers of a movie with one of the biggest budgets of all time want is a return to the $967 million-plus box-office success of the Terminator movies.
It's a success Schwarzenegger believes can never be guaranteed and will always involve a battle.
For Terminator 3, which finished filming late last year and will be released in Australia in July, the fight just took a lot longer to win.
It's been more than a decade since Terminator 2: Judgment Day was released in a bid to accomplish the near-impossible in blowing away the quality and success of the 1984 original.
Schwarzenegger, flush with money and praise, wanted a quick follow-up but the production company, despite the box-office takings, went bankrupt and a legal battle raged before an auction for the rights to the series was resolved in 1997.
The long delays cost the services of Cameron, who went on to direct Titanic, and the script went through years of drafts before Schwarzenegger was comfortable to go ahead without his old partner.
The result is a another twist in the post-apocalyptic tale of the terminator and the preordained mercenary, John Connor, who fights to save the world.
Not much is out yet about the script for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines – it's a secret that everyone from Schwarzenegger to the set designer takes great delight in maintaining.
But what the studios will reveal of the film's premise is familiar.
A decade has passed since Connor, played by Nick Stahl (In the Bedroom), helped prevent Judgment Day and save mankind from mass destruction.
Now 25, Connor lives "off the grid" – no home, credit cards, phone or job – to ensure that Skynet, the network of machines hell-bent on taking over the world, can never find him.
But like the previous two instalments, Skynet sends a terminator out of the shadows of the future to hunt down Connor and complete the job left unfinished by the earlier cyborg assassins.
This time, it's a T-X Terminator, in the shape of gorgeous New York-based Norwegian actor/model Kristanna Loken, Skynet's most sophisticated cyborg killer yet.
Connor's only hope is the T-800 model terminator, played by Schwarzenegger, the former killing machine (in T1 ) that famously became his protector against another cyborg killer back in T2.
The obsessed mother-protector, Sarah Connor, played in the first two movies by Linda Hamilton, doesn't return in T3 except in the odd flashback.
Claire Danes, who plays the daughter of a military officer, is accidentally caught up in the hunt and, according to speculation, provides the first element of romance in the series with John Connor.
And while the official hook in the tale is the rise of the ultimate cyborg femme fatale, Schwarzenegger hints that the real twist will be in the swaying allegiance of his character to Connor.
"We're always trying to outdo the last thing. Terminator 2 was extraordinary and I think the way T3 is scripted it also has a chance to be extraordinary," Schwarzenegger says.
"The audience was surprised [in T2] because I started the movie looking like an evil terminator and then actually I became the protector. There was something touching about this big machine with the little kid.
"It's the same here again. I'm programmed to be the protector but things start to go wrong and all of a sudden I change in the movie as well.
"The key thing is that the script has to be smartly written."
Schwarzenegger denies his return to the Terminator series, which will also involve a quick-fire fourth sequel, has anything to do with his recent poor performance at the box office.
After a string of massive hits in the first half of the 1990s that included Total Recall and True Lies, the Austrian's bankability went into the red with a series of flops, most recently with Collateral Damage.
Schwarzenegger says his "star power" has never been brighter and his acting remains "consistent". He says that Hollywood has tried to change the rules that dictate his success.
"People love to gossip and come up with negative scenarios," he says. "Some of my last movies haven't had big US grosses but they've done well overseas.
"T3 isn't some desperate move on my part to revive my movie career. It's doing fine.
"If someone tries to make a peachy movie with me – like Collateral Damage – and water it down to make it kid-friendly, then you immediately get a kind of revolt among the audience."
T3 promises to be far from "kid-friendly". The cinematic darkness of the two previous films will remain and the action will include Hollywood's first chase scene involving a mobile crane through the darkened streets of downtown LA.
Despite the advance of computer technology and its use in film, the filmmakers are adamant many of the special effects are achieved through old-fashioned robotics.
Schwarzeneggerer, who underwent heart surgery several years ago for a congenital disease, went back to the gym and trained hard for three months to get into shape for the showdown with his female nemesis.
"Everything went really extraordinarily well except that it took a little more time than anyone expected because there were so many visual effects," he says.
"It's going to be a real spectacle because we've never seen a fight scene with two people who are actually machines – one that weighs 2000 pounds and the other 1000 pounds."
