Once upon a time, there was a young man determined to be a filmmaker. He had studied Physics and English at Fullerton College in Brea, California, where his Canadian family had relocated, but soon was caught with a new passion: movies.

He left college, and worked as a truck driver and a janitor, all the while spending any vacant time in libraries, writing and learning the basics of film and special effects.

In 1978, he borrowed $20,000 from friends and family, and, at the ripe old age of 24, he managed to put together his first film, the short Xenogenesis, the saga of a part-man/part-machine hero searching the universe for a place to settle post-apocalypse humans.

A new road opened up – soon, he was working for Roger Corman in various capacities: production assistant, miniature model maker, art director, special effects, and production designer.

In 1982, he was hired to do special effects for the Piranha sequel, Piranha II: The Spawning. Working on the Grand Cayman Islands but mostly in Rome, he found himself in a tough spot: the director and the producer didn’t see eye to eye, the film was in serious trouble and he had to work double, taking care of both effects and direction.

He was exhausted and sick, with a constant high fever. One night, at the height of his malady, bathed in sweat, he had a terrible nightmare: a gigantic human-like robot chasing after him, with orders to kill him.

That very year, after his other nightmare – Piranha II – had passed and he was back in Los Angeles, at a friend’s house, he wrote the basic story he saw in his nightmare.

The young man was James Cameron. The human-robot was The Terminator.

 

For decades, through six iterations of The Terminator, from the first film to the most recent, Terminator: Dark Fate (2019),  the nightmare evolved to become a franchise.

The first triptych – The Terminator (1984), Terminator II: Judgement Day (1991), and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) – set up an entire scary new world, in which our present is always at the edge of destruction, with machines surpassing their ex-masters in a terrifying future.

Cyborgs also became a staple of action-loaded summer movies, expanding the entertainment menu launched with pioneers like Jaws (1975) and Star Wars (1977).

Ironically, The Terminator didn’t jump on the summer bandwagon right away.

With a new director, a new theme, and a fresh new would-be star (Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had just made his mark with Conan the Barbarian in 1982), the film landed a spot in late October. It would come back in Summer not only in all the subsequent franchise installments but also in never-ending repeats on screens and TV.

For the feature first-timer Cameron (not counting the last-minute take-over to save Piranha II: The Spawning), moving Terminator from page to screen wasn’t so hard.

Cameron enlisted his old friend William Wisher Jr., the star of Xenogenesis, now more interested in writing. Together, they turned the plot into a script, giving the nightmarish robot the full role of a cybernetic assassin with orders to eliminate a woman whose existence can change the future.

A friend (and future wife) from the time of Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, Gale Anne Hurd liked the project and bought the pitch in the bold amount of $1. In a short time, Hurd had Orion and HBO interested in distribution and got Hemdale Film Corporation on board to secure most of the finance.

The budget was stringent for an ambitious sci-fi/action saga: $4 million.

Casting was a bit more complex – Arnold Schwarzenegger was at first cast as Kyle Reese, the man from the future who protects the Terminator’s victim.

For the Terminator, Orion insisted on having a well-known actor. Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone passed. Cameron nixed O. J. Simpson because he was “too friendly to be an assassin.”

Curious about Schwarzenegger and his success as Conan the Barbarian, Cameron had lunch with the actor. Many years later, in a press conference for Terminator: Dark Fate (2019), Schwarzenegger recalled that instead of talking about the Kyle character, he couldn’t stop thinking and describing the Terminator.

At coffee, the key element of the movie had been decided: Schwarzenegger would be the Terminator.

Michael Biehn took the Kyle character. As with the Terminator part, several big stars, from Christopher Reeve to Al Pacino, had passed on the role.

Linda Hamilton was Cameron’s choice for Sarah Connor, whom he describes in the script as, “her vulnerable quality masks a strength even she doesn’t know exists.”

Cameron’s best friend and co-writer, William Wisher Jr., got a moment of glory: as the cop who gets banged against his own patrol car and the Terminator takes his place.

Filming began in Canada in the first months of 1983 but had to stop because of a clause in Schwarzenegger’s previous contracts with other commitments. Cameron used the downtime of nine months to write the script of Rambo: First Blood Part II and begin working on the story that would become Aliens.

In March of 1984, the filming resumed in earnest, this time in Los Angeles. With a tight budget, Cameron moved the project as fast as possible, many times working without permits.

Linda Hamilton sprained her ankle early in the shoot and had to work with minimum time standing up, her leg taped every day.

 

Schwarzenegger couldn’t say “I’ll” in “I’ll be back” and begged Cameron to change the line. Cameron refused, and let the actor say it the way he could. It would become a classic line of the movie and Schwarzenegger.

On the upside: Cameron’s training in special and physical effects made the post-production agile and efficient.

Orion was happy to have The Terminator in their hands so fast but didn’t have great expectations – after all, it was a small action picture without big stars.

 

They got a big surprise: at the opening, the modest movie amassed $4 million. At the end of the run, the little movie had amassed $78.3 million worldwide. And a new subtheme – the power of machines against the humans who made them – became a key element of the action/sci-fi/summer movie.