I remember feeling incredibly disappointed when Shawn Ryan’s Fox cop drama The Chicago Code was cancelled, as the series had so much potential, not to mention a pretty great cast. But it’s hard to regret the situation entirely when taking into account the direction of Jason Clarke’s career. Since The Chicago Code was cancelled in 2011, he’s gone on to appear in Zero Dark Thirty, The Great Gatsby and White House Down, with a host of upcoming projects on his CV, and it looks like the Terminator reboot could be among them in a big way, as the actor is reportedly in talks to play the role of John Connor.
Deadline reports that Clarke is in early talks to lead the rebellion against the machines in the role of John Connor in the Terminator reboot, which is currently going under the title Terminator: Genesis, is set to be helmed by Alan Taylor and has a release date set for July 1, 2015.
Anyone familiar with the Terminator franchise knows what a key role John Connor plays to the story, as he’s the future leader of the resistance against Skynet and the machines. He’s the guy the Terminator wants to undo, first by targeting his mother in The Terminator and then by targeting John as a kid in the second film of the original franchise. He becomes the central character in the films that followed. Deadline doesn’t specify how prominently John Connor fits into Terminator: Genesis, but if we were looking at the original Terminator movie, John Connor would be in the flash-forwards of Kyle Reese’s past. That may be applicable with the reboot as well, when we consider that Emilia Clarke is a front-runner for the part of Sarah Connor, John’s mother. Given that there’s an 18 year age difference going in the wrong direction — for what’s humanly possible for a mother and son — between Clarke and Clarke, it stands to reason that she’s in the past (or present, depending on where we're standing) and he’s in the future, which lines up with how the original Terminator film worked, as John Connor had yet to be conceived at the start of the 1984 film.
In past Terminators, John Connor was played by Edward Furlong (T2), Nick Stahl (T3), Christian Bale (T4) and Thomas Dekker (TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles). In terms of actors, Clarke’s a solid choice, as he’s proven to be a great asset to a number of projects. Plus, if Emilia Clarke lands the part of Sarah, the surname connection makes it feel like this is all meant to be. But it sounds like, at present, nothing is set in stone here. Or as they say, "The future's not set. There's no fate but what we make for ourselves."
