The highly anticipated Terminator: Dark Fate, which hits theaters this Friday, November 1, was due to have a splashy premiere tonight at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Imax on Hollywood Boulevard. Unfortunately, that premiere (and the after party at the Tropicana in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel) has been cancelled for a much more unfortunate reason: the so-called Getty brush fire that broke out in Los Angeles early Monday morning.
The Getty fire, which started at about 1:30 a.m. Monday morning and began in the Sepulveda Pass area near the southbound side of the 405 freeway which connects West Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley, has burned over 500 acres at the time of this writing. Luckily, there are currently no reported deaths or injuries related to the fire, but over 10,000 homes are in the fire area, with 20,000 people needing to be evacuated, including Los Angeles Lakers star Lebron James and Sons of Anarchy / Mayans M.C. creator Kurt Sutter.
It should be noted that at least a little bit of good will come out of the cancellation of the Terminator: Dark Fate premiere. According to Deadline, Paramount and Skydance Media will be donating the food that was intended for the premiere after party to the American Red Cross, so they can serve it to those who have been effected by the fire.
Terminator: Dark Fate is, technically, the fifth sequel to the 1984 classic that helped cement Arnold Schwarzenegger's status as an action star. But, with the exception of Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), those sequels have left much to be desired. This is why, when fans heard that not only would Schwarzenegger be returning to the fold, but Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor (though she might not be game for another) and, (this is the really big news) original franchise creative force James Cameron to help spearhead the film, many got excited.
Even though this is the most recent in a very long line of sequels, Terminator: Dark Fate has taken the opportunity to do something that many fans of the franchise probably do any way: it's ignoring all but the first two films in the series. So, to enjoy Dark Fate you don't have to keep up with the, now very complex, timelines created by Rise of the Machines (2003), Salvation (2009) or Genisys (2015), all you need is a healthy understanding of where things stood by the end of T2, and you'll be good to go!
We'll have to wait a few days to see if James Cameron coming back to his franchise to help write and edit the finished film will, indeed encourage crowds to show up for Terminator: Dark Fate, but early reviews of the film have been mostly positive, though not overwhelmingly so, and this will probably help at least bring some folks into the theater on opening weekend. However, it should be noted that the movie released in 10 other countries over this past weekend, and only manged to drum up $12.8 million, which is certainly low for a big-budget action movie.
The premiere for Terminator: Dark Fate getting cancelled is unlikely to have any effect on the domestic box office, so we can all judge the movie's performance with clear minds come next week. Terminator: Dark Fate begins previews at 7 p.m. this Thursday, October 31, and opens in wide release the next day, Friday, November 1.
