Terminator: Genesis Adds G.I. Joe Actor And Two More
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As time marches on towards the New Orleans-bound production start on Alan Taylor’s Terminator: Genesis, Paramount and Skydance are quickly filling out the remaining cast members, following last week’s announcement with three more actors lined up to join the fifth film in this highly successful franchise. Byung-hun Lee (G.I. Joe), Michael Gladis (Mad Men), and House of Cards‘ Sandrine Holt will join Arnold Schwarzenegger for one more trip through time’s highly violent circuits.
Considering we’re not even quite sure what the plot of Terminator: Genesis is going to be, it’s no surprise that the announcement didn’t reveal any major details about the roles these actors are taking. As THR puts it, “Lee’s role is being kept locked in the deepest vaults of Cyberdyne, I mean Skydance, but it promises to be a doozy.”
One can hope his character gets in the same neighborhood of intensity as the one he played in South Korean director Ji-woon Kim’s excellent 2010 revenge thriller I Saw the Devil. (Check it out on Netflix if you haven’t seen it.) Here’s a red-band trailer that shouldn’t be touched by those who are weak at heart.
Even if he isn’t just a continuously ruthless monster like Robert Patrick’s T-1000, I’ll be impressed. But will the T-1000 even be back in any capacity? Not much is known about the script from co-writers Laeta Kalogridis (Shutter Island) and Patrick Lussier (Drive Angry), only that it will bring back familiar characters for a quasi-parallel riff on the core Terminator mythos. Instead of completely rebooting everything that James Cameron so brilliantly set up, they’re taking the story of Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney), Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke), and John Connor (Jason Clarke) in a different direction, because time travel is weird, bro. But it’s still the future, because Schwarzenegger’s T-800 has aged, and Dayo Okeniyi is playing Danny Dyson, the son of Skynet creator Miles Dyson from Terminator 2: Judgment Day. J.K. Simmons is also on hand, reportedly in the role of a grizzled detective who takes on a case for Sarah.
Everything is good about the cast that was set up thus far, and the newcomers are just as solid. (I admittedly never saw Lee’s work as Storm Shadow in the G.I. Joe movies.) Gladis made a big mark as copywriter Paul Kinsey on AMC’s Mad Men, and showed off his comedic side on Adult Swim’s Eagleheart. He is building a film career with a recent role in the comedic fantasy Knights of Badassdom, following parts in Atom Egoyan’s West Memphis Three drama Devil’s Knot and Joe Johnston’s office thriller Not Safe for Work. Holt, who holds a distinction for starring in both an Underworld and a Resident Evil movie, made an episodic splash on Netflix’s vicious political drama House of Cards and CBS’ also politically motivated thriller Hostages. She’s currently filming the Robert Kirkman-produced thriller Air with Norman Reedus, as directed by Christian Cantamessa.
Until someone says differently, Terminator: Genesis is set to melt faces in theaters on July 1, 2015.
