Arnold Schwarzenegger was too busy running California to save the world in the new “Terminator” movie.

The action hero turned California governor starred in the first three films in the blockbuster sci-fi trilogy, but top billing in “Terminator Salvation,” which opens in U.S. theaters

on Thursday, goes to “Batman” star Christian Bale.

True to his catchphrase “I’ll be back,” Schwarzenegger did make a brief cameo, even though he never set foot on the movie’s set. Through computer-generated special effects, his fearsome visage was taken from a previous movie and superimposed on a deadly Terminator robot.

Schwarzenegger may not be beloved by voters in California, which is battling a budget crisis, but the critics miss him.

“In Arnold’s absence, an important ingredient of the ‘Terminator’ iconography — namely, the fun factor — is in short supply,” said the Hollywood Reporter of the new film.

Added the Los Angeles Times, “On the plus side, ‘Terminator Salvation’ has lots of action. But it has no soul.”

The film, directed by “Charlie’s Angels” filmmaker Joseph Nichol, known in Hollywood as McG, takes viewers into a world shown only through fearful glimpses in the past three movies — planet Earth in the wake of a nuclear holocaust.

Bale and Australian actor Sam Worthington play allies in humanity’s resistance against the robotic and self-aware machines that have destroyed mankind.

McG said that James Cameron, the filmmaker behind the first two “Terminator” movies, asked him in a conversation why “Terminator Salvation” was worth making.

“I said, because this explores the world after Judgment Day, and all three ‘Terminator’ pictures are indeed present-day pictures of Terminators coming back through time and chasing (humans),” McG told reporters recently.

In the movie set in 2018, John Connor (Bale) is a leader of human resistance fighters hunkered down against humanoid robots. In the midst of plans for a military attack on the machines, a man with a troubled past named Marcus Wright (Worthington) appears out of nowhere.

At first Connor and Wright clash, but they later team up to infiltrate the machines’ headquarters, where the artificially intelligent computer Skynet reigns.

APOCALYPSE NOW

Movies where humanity’s fate is at peril will become familiar territory for movie goers in the coming months.

In the film “Star Trek,” which opened on May 8, a renegade alien named Nero threatens to destroy Earth, but is stopped by the famed crew of the Starship Enterprise.

The film “2012,” which is scheduled to open on November 13, shows the world devastated by a cataclysmic disaster. The movie plays on popular fears of a doomsday scenario for 2012, based on ancient Mayan predictions.

Worthington also stars in the movie “Avatar” opening on December 18, which is directed by Cameron, and which the actor said shares similar themes to “Terminator Salvation.”

“Hope, that’s definitely a theme in ‘Avatar’ and this,” Worthington said. “Humanity, people finding hope in desperate

times, which is good in this day and age.”

Cameron’s 1984 movie “The Terminator,” the first film in the franchise, was a low-budget affair that last year was selected for preservation by the U.S. Library of Congress, based in part on Schwarzenegger’s star-making performance.

“Terminator 2: Judgment Day” came out in 1991 and made $519.8 million at worldwide box offices and “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” followed in 2003 with $433.4 million.

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Director Ron Howard’s “Angels & Demons,” starring Tom Hanks as symbology expert Robert Langdon, should make over $40 million this weekend while 2006′s Da Vinci Code made $77 million at U.S. and Canada box offices, industry watchers say.

Paul Dergarabedian of Hollywood.com Box Office said Angels lacks the buzz of its predecessor.

“It just doesn’t have that cultural zeitgeist to it, because ‘The Da Vinci Code’ was a phenomenon, a worldwide phenomenon based on the Dan Brown book,” he said.

Angels is also based on a novel from Brown, whose Da Vinci Code upset the Vatican for its storyline that Jesus impregnated Mary Magdalene, and church officials tried to keep their bloodline secret.

While the Vatican criticized the earlier film before it opened three years ago, it has taken a more measured tone against its sequel.

“The Vatican has finally learned that when you condemn a movie you encourage people to see it,” said Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

Da Vinci made $758 million at worldwide box offices, and was especially popular internationally, with $541 million coming from audiences outside the U.S. and Canada.

In the wake of that international success, Sony Corp’s Sony Pictures plans to launch its sequel in nearly 100 countries on Friday, instead of staggering the release dates.

Sony Pictures said it expects the film to have an opening weekend in the $45 million range in the U.S. and Canada. But with box office totals rising industrywide, opening numbers have often outstripped expectations.

Going into last weekend’s U.S. and Canada opening of “Star Trek,” the studio behind the movie, Viacom Inc unit Paramount Pictures, said it expected an opening slightly higher than $50 million, and the movie made $75.2 million.

Box office watchers said Angels & Demons, which will open in 3,527 theaters in the U.S. and Canada, is still expected to be No. 1 at the box office this weekend, despite competition.

“Star Trek does seem to have a lot of momentum, but the question is how much of that first weekend was fan driven and how far could it fall,” said Brandon Gray, president of tracking firm Box Office Mojo.

Angels seen missing Da Vinci box office mark | Entertainment | Reuters

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Director JJ Abrams’ prequel to the sci-fi franchise took an estimated $76.5m (£50.3m) in its opening weekend, easily beating its nearest rival.

The figure far surpasses the opening totals of the previous 10 Trek films.

Star Trek’s impressive opening pushed previous chart-topper X-Men Origins: Wolverine down to second place, with takings of $27m (£17.7m).

But the comic book hero movie still ranks as the biggest film opening so far this year, taking $85m (£56m) in its first weekend.

Star Trek, which stars newcomer Chris Pine in the lead role, reveals the back stories of Captain Kirk, Mr Spock and the rest of the crew of the USS Enterprise.

Paramount Pictures had estimated that the movie would make about $50m (£33m) for the weekend, but hoped strong reviews would help carry it to a bigger opening.

Vice chairman Rob Moore said he expected the movie, which had a $140m (£92.3m) budget, should gross over $200m (£132m) total this summer, even with competition like Terminator: Salvation and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince being released in cinemas soon.

The rest of the films in the top five all shuffled down one place to make way for the sci-fi blockbuster.

Romantic comedy Ghosts of Girlfriends Past was at three, with Beyonce thriller Obsessed at four and Zac Efron comedy 17 Again at five.

The only other new nationwide release, comic crime tale Next Day Air, opened at number six with $4m (£2.6m).

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Langella, an Italian American, was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of Frank A. Langella, Sr., a business executive. Langella attended Washington Elementary School and Bayonne High School in Bayonne. He graduated from Columbia High School, in the South Orange and Maplewood School District, in 1955, and graduated from Syracuse University in 1959 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in drama. He remains a brother of the Alpha Chi Rho fraternity.Langella was married to Ruth Weil from June 14, 1977 to their divorce in 1996. They have two children. He lived with actress/comedian Whoopi Goldberg, whom he met on the set of Eddie in 1996, until they separated in March 2001.

Other Information

• Birth name: Frank A. Langella Jr.
• Born: January 1, 1938
• Birth place: Bayonne, New Jersey, USA
• Years active: 1965 – present
• Spouse: Ruth Weil (1977-1996)
• Awards won: Tony Awards: Best Featured Actor in a Play – 1975 Seascape – 2002 Fortune’s Fool, Best Leading Actor in a Play – 2007 Frost/Nixon; Other awards: NBR Award for Best Supporting Actor – 1970 Diary of a Mad Housewife, 1970 The Twelve Chairs

Links

• Frank Langella at the Internet Broadway Database
• Frank Langella at the Internet Movie Database
• Frank Langella article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki
• Star File: Frank Langella at Broadway.com

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Development of the film began in 2005 when Paramount Pictures contacted Abrams, Orci and Kurtzman for ideas to revive the franchise. The creative team contrasted Orci and Lindelof, who consider themselves “Trekkies”, with casual fans like Abrams, who all aimed to create a film that would interest a general audience. They wanted to be faithful to Star Trek canon, but also introduced elements of their favorite novels, modified continuity with the time travel storyline, and modernized the production design of the original show. Filming took place from November 2007 to April 2008 under intense secrecy. Midway through the shoot, Paramount chose to delay the release date from December 25, 2008 to May 2009, believing the film would perform better in the northern summer.

Other Information

• Also Known As : Corporate Headquarters, Star Trek XI, Star Trek Zero, Star Trek: The IMAX Experience
• Genre : Action, Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi
• Release date :  (May 7, 2009) Australia, New Zealand, (May 8, 2009) United Kingdom, North America
• Country : United States
• Filming Locations : Bakersfield, California, USA
• Company : Bad Robot
• Language : English
• Budget : $150 million
• Preceded by : Star Trek Nemesis

Cast and Credits

• Directed by : J. J. Abrams
• Produced by : J. J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Bryan Burk
• Written by : (Screenplay) Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, (Characters) Gene Roddenberry
• Starring : Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Eric Bana, Leonard Nimoy
• Music by :  Michael Giacchino
• Cinematography : Daniel Mindel
• Editing by : Mary Jo Markey, Maryann Brandon
• Distributed by : Paramount Pictures

Trivia

• The idea of a young James T. Kirk and young Spock meeting at the Academy was considered as early as 2001, as a possible idea for a TV series to follow “Star Trek: Voyager” (1995), which would focus on their early years at Star Fleet Academy. The idea was eventually dropped, and instead, the series “Enterprise” (2001) was developed.

Links

• Official website
• Updated Trailer with added footage.
• Trailer
• Worldwide release dates
• NCC-1701 Viral campaign
• Official website of the Star Trek franchise
• Star Trek at the Internet Movie Database
• Star Trek at Allmovie
• Star Trek article at Memory Alpha

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