When Terminator: Dark Fate was released in theaters in 2019, it failed to make the Terminator franchise, leaving the franchise’s future still unclear. At the time, there was a lot of excitement from fans leading up to its release based on the return of major players from the most popular movie in the series, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Joining Arnold Schwarzenegger in the new movie was Linda Hamilton to reprise her role as Sarah Connor, and many fans were happy to hear too Edward Furlong would also return as John Connor.
As those who have seen the film now know, Furlong’s return as John Connor wasn’t something they should have gotten too excited about. The character (SPOILER ALERT) is ended in the early scenes of the film thanks to a body double using Furlong’s teenage effigy. For many longtime fans of the franchise, the scene immediately knocked them out, making it hard to enjoy the rest of the film. The return of Hyping Furlong just to kill the character this way felt like bait to some viewers and was heavily criticized by moviegoers and critics alike.
In an interview with Alex Lebya on YouTubeFurlong tells what happened to Terminator: Dark Fate. He is not as critical of the scene as the fans were, as he was still recovering from heavy drug use and was not physically prepared to star in an action movie.
“I understood because it made sense when I first got sober. So I kind of understood where my life decisions had taken me at the time. And I really wasn’t in one place, when they made that, that I had I mean, I was on a lot of heroin.”
Returning as John Connor would be ‘great’, but it wasn’t meant to be
When Terminator 2: Judgment Day was released, there were no plans at the time to make any more Terminator movies. That changed when production of the 2003 sequel began Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines with Arnold Schwarzenegger back as a new Terminator. As Furlong’s substance abuse problems flared up during that time, he was no more able to return than John Connor, leading to Nick Stahl replacing him in the sequel. The character has since been played by Christian Bale and Jason Clarke in other Terminator prosecute.
While Furlong understands that he couldn’t have played a major role in… Terminator: Dark Fate, he says he still had a bad feeling about killing his character. He recognized how popular Terminator 2 has always been and had fans commented on how excited people were to see the original John Connor’s return after other actors took turns playing the part. That said, while Furlong gets the decision to sit him out of the movie, he’s not denying that it would have been “great” to be able to make a new movie. Terminator movie.
“Personally, I thought, ‘This isn’t going to end well.’ I thought, with the fan base, because I knew Terminator 2 is such a big thing, and when they said I was in it, people would come up to me and say, ‘I’m so glad you’re in the movie! “It was kind of like, after all the different John Connors playing it, and I screwed up, I kind of got back what I felt like it was mine. So, it was nostalgic. I would have loved it if I could being in a new Terminator and doing the whole movie and making more money than me, and probably still making money? Yeah, that would be great. That would be really great.”
The good news is that Furlong has gotten his acting career back on track after keeping himself sober. In July, he announced that he had been sober for four years. Furlong has even finished filming for his next movie called a movie Charlie’s horse from director Brad Keller. Maybe it’s just the start of a career revival with many more roles on the way.