Terminator 6: Linda Hamilton returns after 26 years

Linda Hamilton is the latest name to return to the Terminator films, more than 25 years since her last appearance as the series’ robot-battling heroine Sarah Connor.

The actor’s return was announced by Terminator creator James Cameron at a private event celebrating the franchise, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Hamilton will reprise her role as Connor in the as-yet-untitled sixth instalment of the series, which will see her reunited with Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose own appearance in Terminator 6 was confirmed earlier this year.

Cameron will produce and Deadpool’s Tim Miller will direct the film, which is being treated as a direct sequel to 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and is being eyed up as the first instalment of a new trilogy.

“As meaningful as she was to gender and action stars everywhere back then, it’s going to make a huge statement to have that seasoned warrior that she’s become return,” Cameron said of Hamilton’s comeback.

Hamilton, who was briefly married to Cameron in the late 1990s, has not appeared in the franchise since T2, although she did provide a voiceover for the fourth film in the series, Terminator: Salvation. Speaking at the time of that film’s release, she said that the franchise should have ended after Judgment Day. “I thought it was perfect with two films. It was a complete circle, and it was enough in itself. But there will always be those who will try and milk the cow.”

Now it seems that Hamilton is open to the idea of more sequels, although her role in Terminator 6 will not be as the female lead, with Cameron saying that he was searching for “an 18-something woman to be the centrepiece of the new story. We will have characters from the future and the present. There will be mostly new characters but we’ll have Arnold and Linda’s characters to anchor it,” he said.

Cameron said that he hoped Hamilton’s return as Sarah Connor would send out a message about the lack of older female actors in action films. “There are 50-year-old, 60-year-old guys out there killing bad guys,” he said, “but there isn’t an example of that for women.”