Directed by Thor: The Dark World helmer Alan Taylor, 2015's Terminator Genisys is widely considered the worst movie in the sci-fi franchise. Meant to serve as a reboot, it introduced a new timeline created when Skynet attempted to kill Sarah Connors as a child.
Jason Clarke played John Connor who, in the movie's big twist, had been transformed into a Terminator-hybrid by Skynet. Joining him were Emilia Clarke as Sarah, Jai Courtney as Kyle Reese, and Arnold Schwarzenegger as a T-800 dubbed "Pops."
House of the Dragon star Matt Smith made a relatively minor appearance as the advanced T-5000 Terminator who embodies Skynet, and it sounds like shooting his scenes was a bemusing experience for the British actor.
"My rather brief time in that world. It was quite strange, you know, when I [was] filming," Smith says in the video below. "My first day was with Arnold Schwarzenegger and he was in just, like, a top half and green spandex, like green screen trousers. I was like, 'What the f*ck is going on, man?' I’m playing a computer who...It was quite bizarre."
Despite being slated by critics (Terminator Genisys has 26% on Rotten Tomatoes), the movie was a moderate box office success. It grossed $440.6 million on a $155 million budget, an improvement over its predecessors.
The largely negative response to Genisys prompted Paramount to softly reboot the Terminator franchise again with 2019's Dark Fate. While that effort fared far better with critics, it earned only $261.1 million worldwide.
Clarke, who had worked with Taylor on several episodes of Game of Thrones, said in 2018, "He was not the director I remember. He didn't have a good time. No one had a good time."
The actress also admitted she was "relieved" to not be asked back for a sequel and revealed that production went so poorly that word spread to the nearby Fantastic Four set (which also had its fair share of issues under director Josh Trank's watch).
However, Terminator Genisys was such a mess, members of the Fantastic Four crew started wearing jackets which read, "At least we’re not on 'Terminator.'"
Check out the full interview with Smith in the player below.
The year is 2029. John Connor, leader of the resistance continues the war against the machines. At the Los Angeles offensive, John’s fears of the unknown future begin to emerge when TECOM spies reveal a new plot by SkyNet that will attack him from both fronts; past and future, and will ultimately change warfare forever.