It’s the Monday after the release of Terminator: Dark Fate (let’s refer to it as TDF from here on, OK?), and it would appear the film underperformed and might even be, as Jason Guerrasio writes in businessinsider.com, an outright bust…

Terminator: Dark Fate is a bust at the box-office, taking in only $29 million

I’m still curious to see the film but it is something of a surprise -or maybe not?- the film underperformed. Note that the original estimates were that TDF would rake in either in the high $30 to low $40 million for the weekend. The $29 million it managed is actually quite close to the opening take Terminator: Genysis did in 2015 when it scored $27 million.

Which kinda/sorta indicates that this seems to be roughly where current audience interest lies with regard to Terminator films.

It’s a sad fact of life that time marches on and while when I was young the original Terminator and Terminator 2 did incredible business and were very much in the public eye, the years have passed and (sadly) Arnold Schwarzenneger and Linda Hamilton are much older now, which may be a great negative to the younger audiences out there.

An admission: When I first saw the trailers for TDF, my first reaction -and I’m more than willing to accept this is a sign of my own shallowness- was surprise at Linda Hamilton’s aging.

I fully accept the fact that it makes me sound shallow (like I’m somehow immune to the passage of time!), but the reality is that film has a way of “freezing” people in time if they leave the public eye.

Arnold Schwarzenneger has aged too, obviously, but he’s been in the public spotlight with other films and, in my mind, I know what he looks like these days. Linda Hamilton, on the other hand, has kept a relatively low profile since Terminator 2. Looking over her IMdb listing, while she’s continued to work over the years, her “biggest” appearances post T2 were in the TV show Chuck (which I never watched) and a turn soon after the release of T2 in the film Dante’s Peak. Otherwise she’s appeared in relatively smaller works and often as a voice actor in animated features.

Which means that seeing her in the trailers for TDF was the first time since the 1990’s I’ve had a look at her.

So we have two older actors in what is, sadly as well, a “young person’s” genre: The action film. And, further to that, a film in a franchise which, let’s face it, has now reached its sixth theatrical film (and we’re not even counting Terminator: The Sarah Connors Chronicles TV show).

Given that Terminator: Genysis just came out a few years back and only did so-so business, it might in retrospect be that people are a little tired of the whole Terminator franchise and what you can make on these films is roughly in/around that amount.

Having said all that, I remain interested in seeing TDF and plan to do so soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow.

Linda Hamilton may no longer be the striking, young kick-ass warrior we saw so memorably in T2, but I’m intrigued with the notion of seeing her play an older, hopefully wiser warrior, whose scars -internal and external- give her that additional edge.

In reading the reviews of the film, it seems that while a slight majority of critics and audiences reacted favorably to the film, there nonetheless are many who feel TDF is a miss. That despite the return of Linda Hamilton, the film is yet another lackluster Terminator sequel.

Potential audiences out there are wiser to critical views of films and these negative reactions may have swayed many to not bother showing up.

Regardless, I will see the film.

Let’s see how I feel about it…