Funny Reason Arnold Schwarzenegger Almost Turned Down Terminator Role

38 years ago, on October 26, 1984, James Cameron 's Terminator was released in the US. This movie marked the beginning of the science fiction action movie genre and changed the history of cinema forever.

Arnold's performance as the T-800 is still considered by many to be the best embodiment of this character, as the actor's impassive speech and imposing physique balanced the deadly threat personified by the killing machine.

Schwarzenegger's killer android is a villain, brutal and uncompromising, shooting first and asking no questions throughout the movies.

The character's merciless brutality made the Terminator tense and frightening, and also set the stage for one of the most dramatic and unexpected character reversals in movie history.

Not everyone knows that Schwarzenegger was originally supposed to play the movie's protagonist, Kyle Reese.

When James Cameron thought about the plot of the movie and its main characters, he did not imagine the Terminator as huge, pumped up and athletic.

In his opinion, the cyborgs of the future were created as scouts, so they could easily get lost in the crowd, get close to people and no one would suspect anything strange.

The Terminator had to be a man of normal physique, without a mountain of muscles and even a rather inconspicuous appearance.

Later, however, the role went to Schwarzenegger. Cameron suggested that the cyborg should have been stronger, bigger and taller than Kyle Reese.

However, Arnold initially did not want to play the Terminator, because after counting his character's lines, he realized that there were very few of them – only 27.

But Cameron managed to persuade Schwarzenegger, and one of pop culture's most iconic characters was born. The Terminator was the starting point for an entire franchise that includes many sequels and related movies.

Some of them continue the story started in the first installment, while others are franchise restarts or alternate universes.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day, was released in 1991 and became one of the most successful and influential films in cinema history.

Its sequels, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and Terminator Genisys, received mixed reviews from critics and viewers, but were also box office successes.

In 2019, the final movie in the franchise, Terminator: Dark Fate, was released, which was created as a sequel of the second movie and ignored the events that occurred in the movies that came after it.

Like its predecessors, Terminator: Dark Fate received mixed reviews from critics, but was a good success at the box office.