1. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who portrayed the 'bad' Terminator in the first film, has gone on record as saying,
"I always felt we should continue the story of The Terminator, I told Jim [Cameron] that right after we finished the first film"But when James Cameron got down to writing Terminator 2: Judgement Day, he decided very early on that he didn't just want Sarah and John to fight the T-800 again - even though Carolco Pictures (who had paid a cool $5 million for the rights to produce a sequel to the franchise) really wanted something very similar to the first Terminator film to make sure they got their investment back, and then some!
When Cameron first told Arnold Schwarzenegger his idea for the movie Arnie was initially disappointed, he was concerned that a 'good' Terminator wouldn't get the chance to terminate anyone. Cameron then drafted a version with Arnold in dual roles, playing both a good T-800 and a bad T-800. Ultimately. as good as the effects are in T2, the technical limitations of the day stopped that concept becoming reality. It would, of course, be a concept resurrected many years later in Terminator: Genisys.
The $64,000 phrase
2. In the first movie Arnie had only spoken 58 words in the entire film, when it came to Terminator 2: Judgement Day Schwarzenegger had a little bit more to say - a total of 700 words across the 137 minutes. Still not that much considering he was paid $15 million for the film! If you brake that down to earnings per word, when he said "I'll be back" Arnie banked himself $64,287 - nice work if you can get it, eh?
3. Even though his lines were minimal, Arnie struggled to remember them. In the scene when the Terminator is telling Sarah Connor about Miles Dyson and the history of Skynet, Arnold Schwarzenegger was actually reading his lines direct from a card taped to the car's windshield.
4. Rock star Billy Idol was the original choice for the T-1000 (Robert Patrick's character) until he was injured in a motorcycle accident and had to withdraw from the movie.
5. Edward Furlong had to re-dub many of his lines after the filming was completed. Like most movies, scenes were shot out of sequence and Furlong's voice broke during production. After the film was initially edited into a rough gut it was clearly audible that Furlong's voice was jumping octaves from one scene to the next.
6. The original proposed ending of T2 saw an older Sarah Connor look at her son John playing with his daughter in a peaceful future scenario. Carolco, who had an eye on getting even more money back on their investment, felt a happy ending like this would ruin any future sequels and so they asked Cameron to change it.
Cameron was adamant this would be the final scene, and T2 would be the end of the Terminator franchise. He stuck to his guns on this but eventually relented just one month before the film’s release. Cameron then used road footage from the scene just before the attack on Cyberdyne Systems to create the ending which we saw.
The original ending can be seen in later DVD special edition releases.
7. In Terminator 2: Judgement Day we discover that Skynet goes live on August 29th 1997. In the real world the domain name for Google was registered just a couple of weeks later, on September 15th 1997. Coincidence?
8. At the time Terminator 2: Judgement Day was the most expensive movie ever made, with a budget of $94 million. It seems this is a common James Cameron trait as we explored here. He only directed two other motion pictures throughout the 1990s, both broke the bank and, at the time, took the title of most expensive movie ever made - True Lies coming in at $100 million and Titanic doubling that.
9. T2 is the only film of the Terminator franchise to win an Academy Award, it was nominated for 6 and won 4 of them - Best Make-Up, Best Sound, Best Sound Editing and Best Visual Effects. Also, to date Terminator 2: Judgment Day is the only sequel movie to win an Oscar when the previous installment wasn't even nominated.
10. T2 was the last Terminator movie that James Cameron directed (returning as producer only for 2019s Terminator: Dark Fate), and was almost the last that Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in. When the credits rolled they both agreed that the franchise was complete despite Carolco's pressure to change the ending and Cameron saying in an interview that if T2 was successful "there may be some economic pressure" to do a sequel.
However, as we know, it clearly wasn't! (Although many wish it was)
By the mid 1990s Cameron had changed his mind. After reuniting the cast for the 3D film ride, Terminator 2 3-D: Battle Across Time, he found the experience so enjoyable that he began work on a natural sequel to T2. That never came to fruition, and we'll look at the reasons why in a separate article next time, and Cameron turned his back on the franchise for the best part of 25 years.
Of course, Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines did eventually happen (although, again, many wish it didn't). Schwarzenegger initially refused to appear in 2003 film, at the time stating that unless Cameron was the director he wouldn't return to the franchise. In the end it was his now-close friend Cameron who changed Arnold's mind when he said to him,
"Just do it and ask for a shit-load of money".Arnie received a record salary of $29.25 million, plus 20% of the profits!
Previously
10 Things You Might Not Know About The Terminator
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