Key Insights
- Budget and Earnings: The Terminator was produced for approximately $6.4 million and grossed $78 million globally.
- VHS Popularity: The film gained significant traction as VHS players became common in households around 1984.
- Legacy: Linda Hamilton embraced her iconic role, stating it would outlive her.
- Franchise Continuation: Hamilton returned for Terminator: Dark Fate, 35 years after the original.
Whittled from the original idea of two cyborgs into one (the idea would inform Terminator 2: Judgment Day), The Terminator was made for about $6.4 million and made $78 million worldwide, including $38 million domestically, earning it sleeper hit status.
“But to give you some perspective, the same year [Karate Kid] made $90 million, so it was a hit, but it wasn’t like this huge, huge hit,” Michael Biehn, who played soldier-from-the-future Kyle Reese, told Ain’t It Cool News in 2011. “1984 is when it came out, that’s when most people started getting their VHS players and I think that that’s really where that movie took off. Everybody saw it on VHS.”
Biehn also worked with Cameron on Aliens and The Abyss.
Hamilton, who reunited with Cameron for T2, as well as briefly joined him in holy matrimony, probably couldn’t envision that she and her biceps would be reporting for duty 35 years after the original came out for 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate.
“I have come to terms with the fact that I will always be Linda ‘The Terminator’ Hamilton,” she told MTV News in 2009. “I go out in the world and people just scream, ‘I love you!’ That’s a great job description. It’s wonderful to have done something that will live longer than me.”
And the rest is sci-fi history. Here are some epic secrets about the making of The Terminator:
