Terminator Salvation (2009)
- Eagle-eyed viewers have noticed a hidden easter egg referencing McG's previous film in the background of the opening scene.
- McG originally wanted a completely different ending for the film, but test audiences preferred the one we see today.
- The original script for Terminator Salvation was written over a decade before production finally began in 2009.
Terminator Salvation is a 2009 American science fiction action film directed by McG, the fourth Terminator installment and the first set entirely in the post-apocalyptic future. Christian Bale stars as John Connor, now a resistance fighter in 2018 during the early years of the war between humanity and Skynet's machine army. The story interweaves Connor's military operations with the journey of Marcus Wright, played by Sam Worthington, a death-row inmate from 2003 who awakens in the devastated future and discovers he has been transformed into a human-machine hybrid with no memory of how or why.
Terminator Salvation was the first film to depict the future war that the previous films had only glimpsed in brief flashbacks, and the post-apocalyptic Los Angeles, rendered in washed-out, desaturated tones, was effectively bleak. The film earned $371 million worldwide on a $200 million budget. The film introduced the concept of human-looking Terminator infiltrators, expanding the franchise mythology.
