Christian Bale wishes he could have "reinvigorated" the 'Terminator' franchise.

Christian Bale

Christian Bale

The 43-year-old actor starred as human race saviour John Connor in 2009 movie 'Terminator Salvation', which was due to be the start of a fresh trilogy.

However, the sci-fi movie received poor reviews despite grossing more than $371 million worldwide and the proposed franchise was shelved.

Bale spent up to eight hours a day with director McG when the film was being edited and he admits he has "enormous regrets" about the project.

Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused Podcast, Bale said: "I wish we could have reinvigorated [the franchise]. And unfortunately, during production, you could tell that wasn't happening. It's a great shame.

"There's a perverse side to me, where people were telling me that, there's no way on God's Earth that I should take that role, and I was thinking the same thing. But when people started verbalising that to me, I started to go, 'Oh really? All right, well watch this then.' So there was a little bit of that involved in the choice. Do you remember that scene with Linda Hamilton where she's going nuts in 'Terminator 2'? We said, we've got to channel that at some point in the film, and that was the scene in which we were channelling it. Great lesson for me of, no matter how much you lose yourself in a scene, you do not allow yourself to behave that way. And yeah, of course, I've got enormous regrets about it."

James Cameron created the 'Terminator' franchise with his cult classic 1984 movie and followed it up with blockbuster 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day' - which when it was released in 1991 was the most expensive movie ever made.

However, the director was not involved in 2003's 'Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines', 'Terminator Salvation' or 2015's 'Terminator Genisys'.

And recently a new 'Terminator' was revealed to be in the works with Arnold Schwarzenegger returning as the titular character - a T-800 killer cyborg - and Hamilton reprising her role as Sarah Connor.

Plot details are being kept under wraps but Tim Miller and Cameron are reportedly treating the film as a direct sequel to 'T2: Judgment Day'.

In the original 1984 movie, Schwarzenegger played the villain but in the sequel his character was the hero.

Tagged in