Trivia / Terminator Genisys

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• Acting for Two: Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a heroic T-800 who has aged naturally, and his digitally de-aged face is placed on a body double to represent the villainous T-800 from the first film, similar to the prototype T-800 in 2009's Terminator Salvation. The last time Arnold showed up in person in the franchise was in 2003 with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.
• Box Office Bomb: In the U.S. Budget, $155 million. Box office, $90 million (domestic), $441 million (worldwide). This is the second-highest grossing Terminator film, but that wasn't enough to overcome the high budget and inflation in the United States.
• California Doubling:
  • An inversion where New Orleans doubles for California in some scenes.
  • Averted in some parts, as many of the San Francisco and Los Angeles scenes were done on location.
  • The Cyberdyne Systems' headquarters is actually the Oracle Corporation campus in Redwood Shores, California, which is in San Mateo, with some CGI embellishment to put it on the east shore of the peninsula near Dogpatch, north of Mission Bay. You can see the 500 number in the lobby window at one point, this is for 500 Oracle Parkway.
  • The hospital that Sarah and Kyle are taken to after materializing in 2017 is labeled as San Francisco Metro Hospital on signs and TV monitors. No such hospital exists in San Francisco with that name. The closest equivalent would be San Francisco General Hospital. The filming location is the LSU Health Center in New Orleans, as evidenced by the "2020 Gravier Street" address on a building.
• Channel Hop: After the company responsible for Salvation went bankrupt, the franchise rights were purchased by a hedge fund who were their biggest creditors. The rights were eventually purchased by Megan Ellison, who went on to partner with her brother David, whose Skydance Productions did Genisys (and their deal with Paramount allowed for a distributor).
• Creator Backlash:
  • Director Alan Taylor wasn't exactly happy that the marketing campaign spoiled the big plot twist of the movie.
  • Emilia Clarke bluntly stated she would never play Sarah Connor again a year after the film's release. She later revealed that nobody had a good time on the film.
  • James Cameron stated in 2017 "I don’t have a lot of respect for the [Terminator] films that were made later." Initially he gave Genisys Approval of God but he only did that “for Arnold’s [Schwarzeneger] sake because he is a close friend.”
  • In a May 2023 interview, Arnold Schwarzenegger revealed that the poor script for this film and the succeeding entry is what convinced him to finally step away from the franchise altogether.
• Development Gag:
  • At one point, Sarah Connor listens to the song "I Wanna Be Sedated" by The Ramones on a cassette player. This song was actually intended to be used in Terminator 2: Judgment Day during the introductory scene for John Connor and his friend, but was replaced with "You Could Be Mine" by Guns N' Roses.
  • The first act has two T-800 Terminators fighting each other, the one from the first film ends up having his skin melted off. Cameron's first idea for the sequel to The Terminator (which he first told Arnold in 1985) would feature two T-800s, one of which would become a metal skeleton.
  • The opening is similar to the opening of an early draft of Terminator 2 which features an extended battle sequence, Skynet shutting down, and Kyle Reese being put through the Time Displacement Equipment.
• Disowned Adaptation: Unsurprisingly, Cameron ended up turning his back on the film when it came time to do the sixth movie, which was announced to ignore Genisys.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Inverted: Arnold stopped dyeing his hair so it could become a natural grey. Also, he worked out to make sure he was still in shape.
• Executive Meddling: The marketers decided that people weren't convinced enough that this movie wasn't a remake and threw in the movie's biggest plot twist into the forefront. Let's just say that a lot of people weren't happy about this, the director included.
• Fake American: Like Salvation, the main actors are this - Australians Jai Courtney and Jason Clarke as Kyle Reese and John Connor, and British Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor. Supporting cast Dayo Okeniyi (Nigerian) as Danny Dyson counts too, and depending on whether or not you count Terminators as "American", ^note the factories do seem to be largely based in North America dual-citizen Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lee Byung-hun, and Matt Smith. In point of fact, the only featured actor in the cast that is a natural-born American is J. K. Simmons.
• The Other Darrin: Damn near everybody, save for Arnold Schwarzenegger himself as the T-800. It does follow the trend of John Connor being played by different actors in every movie since T2 (and the TV series), although that trend was later terminated with Dark Fate.
• Playing Against Type: Matt Smith, the Eleventh Doctor, plays the visual avatar for Skynet.
• Refitted for Sequel: The twist of John Connor being infected by nanomachines into becoming evil was originally conceived (and rejected) for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.
• Role Reprise:
  • Arnold Schwarzenegger reprised his iconic T-800 role 12 years after Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines as the only actor from previous films to return.
  • For that matter, Arnold's iconic French dubbing voice Daniel Beretta returned as well.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: A rare racial variation. Lee Byung Hun resembles an Asian version of Robert Patrick.
• Star-Derailing Role: For quite a few.
  • After a string of original action duds, the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn't even bring in big bucks returning to his most iconic role proved that his days as a leading man are over, hence his role in the next terminator film, Terminator: Dark Fate, was in a supporting capacity.
  • This, coupled with the domestic underperformance of Everest a few months later, killed off all prospects of Jason Clarke becoming a leading star in North America.
  • For Emilia Clarke and Matt Smith, while it didn't outright kill their careers, it all but assured they won't be able to escape the shadows of their respective signature roles for a while. Though Smith did rebound nicely a year later in The Crown (2016), and Clarke also had a minor hit with Me Before You before stumbling again with Solo: A Star Wars Story.
  • Jai Courtney continues to be unable to carry a movie as a leading man, after A Good Day to Die Hard and I, Frankenstein. It is telling that his next film, Suicide Squad, has him playing a supporting character among an ensemble cast.
• Stillborn Franchise: Like Salvation before it, Genisys was supposed to kick off an entirely new trilogy of Terminator films. However, its poor reception caused the planned sequels to be cancelled. Terminator: Dark Fate would be made four years later, but it completely ignores the events of Genisys.
• Throw It In!: J. K. Simmons improvised many of his lines. During one ("Blows a door clean off. You know, for people who can't do that themselves."), Schwarzenegger even stares at him to prove it was unexpected.
• What Could Have Been: See the franchise's page.
• Word of God: According to interviews with the screenwriters, Matt Smith is playing a version of Skynet from a completely different universe, meaning the creation of alternate timelines is being enforced and exploited by the villains, and there are at least seven different timelines at play here, with time travelers from each one playing their own game.
• Written-In Infirmity: The good T-800 being as old as actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was at the time is explained by the Terminator's flesh disguise having aged after spending several decades in the past raising Sarah Connor, as well as the accrued battle damage to his mechanical components.

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