Terminator 2 is 26 years old. Here are 15 new facts!

Terminator 2: Judgment Day was released 32 years ago in France. The movie of james cameron arrived on our screens on October 16, 1991, three months after its American release.

Forbidden to children under 12, this second adventure by Arnold Schwarzenegger in a T-800 remains the franchise’s biggest success here with 6,118,250 admissions.

In the United States, the film has collected more than 200 million dollars and 519 million worldwide (with inflation, these figures can be multiplied by 30%).

Here are 16 facts you might not know about this incredible classic.

1 – terminator was born from a nightmare of James Cameron during the production of Piranha 2, his previous film. After a difficult night putting together this sequel he hated, the director dreamed of a chrome cyborg torso crawling out of an explosion. Cameron quickly crafted this story of a robot assassin from the future killing the woman who would give birth to the man who would save humanity.

2 – James Cameron would have sold the rights to the Terminator franchise for 1 dollar in order to have the possibility of directing the first Terminator in 1984. This deal did not prevent Cameron from becoming the 3rd richest director in the history of cinema.

3 – The rocker Billy Idol was supposed to play the T-1000. But following a serious motorcycle accident, he was replaced by Robert Patrick who is doing wonderfully (For the first Terminator, the studio wantedOJ Simpson either the cyborg instead of Schwarzy who then had no acting experience. Sting was tipped for Kyle Reese).

4 – Schwarzy was worried about becoming a nice robot. When James Cameron explained to him that he wouldn’t kill anyone in Terminator 2, the Austrian replied: “But Jim, I’m the Terminator!“.

Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted his Terminator to kill even more people than in the first film in order to surpass Sylvester Stallone in violence. “I said to Jim “How’s a good Terminator?”. I had killed 68 people in the first film. In the second, I had to kill 150. We let loose, we cut throats, we explode people with cannons and run over them with a car. I had to surpass Stallone. I thought my only goal was to be the person who kills the most people on screen. But James said to me, “Arnold, you really have a problem. I’m going to make sure you don’t kill a single person in Terminator 2.” For me; it was the dumbest idea ever heard. How can you make a Terminator movie without killing anyone?“.

5 – At the time of its release, Terminator 2 was the most expensive movie of all time. $102 million budget was an astronomical sum in 1991. Cameron later crushed that record with titanic. Since then, blockbusters cost between 150 and 250 million to produce.

6 – The ending you all saw was not the ending originally planned and shot. In it, we found John Connor happy in the future. But in order to leave room for a possible Terminator 3, the end that we know was finally preferred. The original ending can be seen on the Collector’s Edition DVD.

Linda Hamilton explained that she was not a fan of the end of the film. At least from this thumbs up. Director Tim Miller (Terminator Dark Fate) said: “At the end of T2, I was 27 years old. The younger ones found this plan cool. Not me… One of the first things I asked Linda was, “How about that thumbs up?” She just replied: “No”…. James Cameron loves this scene. Many people love this scene. For me, it’s a bit too cliché. But maybe I’m not sentimental enough, who knows?.

7 – “Hasta la Vista Baby“has become a cult all over the world… except in Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries where it has been replaced by”Sayonara Baby“which had a much lesser impact.

8 – Schwarzenegger was paid $21,000 per word spoken based on his salary ($15 million) and the number of words he spoke in the film (700). 25 years later, Matt Damon was paid $1 million the replica for the latest Jason Bourne! He received $25 million for 25 lines of dialogue.

9 – The mini submachine gun used by Schwarzy for Terminator 2 is the same one found in predator.

10 – Not only that, the biker bar scene was filmed across from where the LAPD officers beat up Rodney King but it was filmed the very day of the tragedy!

11 – Linda Hamilton really learned to open locks with a paperclip like in the mental asylum scene.

12 – Although Schwarzy and Robert Patrick had multiple scenes together, they never exchanged a single line of dialogue on camera.

13 – For the biker bar scene, Schwarzy wasn’t really naked. He wore purple shorts which were later erased.

14 – The Terminator 2 pitch was written by Cameron for the first Terminator. But due to a lack of budget, he turned to a simpler film.

15 – For the famous final scene of T2 in which the T-1000 transforms into Sarah Connor, James Cameron refused to use digital special effects and asked Linda Hamilton’s twin sister to play opposite her sister.

16 – For the 25th anniversary of Terminator 2, Joseph BaenaSchwarzy’s illegitimate son, re-enacted the biker bar scene by reprising his father’s role.

Bonus Sylvester Stallone:

A user had fun testing Deepfake software to replace Schwarzy’s face with Sly’s in Terminator 2.

Very present on social networks, Stallone ended up reacting by commenting: “Vhere’s what a Terminator would look like if it was built from spaghetti and pizza“.