New Details Emerge On Terminator Sequel's Cast And Setting

The Terminator series has been promising a "return to form" for, well, most of its existence, at this point. But now, details are beginning to emerge about how exactly the sixth, Tim Miller-directed installment of the franchise is going to go about righting the ship.

Thanks to James Cameron, the director of the original two Terminator classics and a producer on this new endeavor, we already have a decent idea of when the newest sequel in the series will take place, with the return of Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor suggesting a linear connection and a 20 to 30 year gap between this film and 1991's Terminator 2. 

Cameron's plans to ignore the events of movies 3, 4, and 5 also suggest the sequel will be a more straightforward follow-up than those films proved to be, with none of the multiple timeline nonsense that plagued Terminator: Genisys.

Now, thanks to Jeff Sneider of The Tracking Board, we're also starting to get an idea of where the movie will be set. According to Sneider, there are reports in the air that the newest Terminator sequel will be set, at least in part, in Mexico—specifically Mexico City. 

Additionally, the reporter says that Miller and Cameron are seeking an 18-year-old, specifically Mexican actress to play the young female lead in the movie, a character by the name of Dani Ramos. This would track with comments from Cameron suggesting that the film would "introduce new characters to 'pass the baton'". 

The Mexican setting would also make a lot of sense for the series, considering Sarah Connor took refuge in the country after the events of the first Terminator, and fled there for a brief respite during Terminator 2. 

As was established in that sequel, Sarah Connor turned herself into quite the badass during her time south of the border, amassing an immense cache of guns and a posse of allies to protect herself from future attempts at robotic assassination. If this sequel is following up on the Sarah Connor story, it would make sense for that homecoming, at least in part, to involve Mexico.

Sneider further reported that the production is seeking an actor of Latin descent with a fighting and stunt background to play the newest villain in the series. Whether this would be a new Terminator model or a particularly badass human has yet to be made clear, but it does further suggest that a Mexican setting will play more than a small role in the story of this sequel.

Though these reports are super-early, they're definitely intriguing, and the idea of a more grounded and contemporary Terminator movie in a setting like Mexico City would be a refreshing change after the grimdark ugly future of the last couple franchise outings. At the very least, it will give Arnold Schwarzenegger another battlefield to lay waste to when he returns for one more go-around as his iconic killer robot.

Another development behind the scenes involves the movie's writer's room, which recently added Billy Ray to polish up the latest draft of the script, according to Variety.

Ray, whose credits include Captain Phillips, The Hunger Games, and the upcoming Gemini Man, joins a writing team that includes David Goyer, Justin Rhodes, and Josh Friedman. They're working on a script based on a story by Cameron, Miller, and producer David Ellison.

The sixth Terminator movie isn't set to be out in theaters until July 26, 2019, so there's still plenty of time to hammer out the story before the movie comes together—hopefully they take their time and make it worth it. Either way, we'll have more details as they develop.