WIRE Buzz: Terminator: Dark Fate director reflects; Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Part 2; more

As well-received as Terminator: Dark Fate was by critics and fans alike who were happy to discard the confusing and uninspiring Terminator canon that occured after Terminator 2: Judgment Day, director Tim Miller’s film didn’t quite terminate the box office. The film, which currently sits at 71 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, brought back old favorites like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton, but still underperformed. Now Miller has had a chance to reflect on the filmmaking process and why exactly the film didn’t quite do what he had hoped.

Speaking to KCRW, the director behind Deadpool opened up about that hardship and that of working with James Cameron, who returned to the franchise to produce Dark Fate.

“Even though Jim is a producer and David Ellison is a producer and they technically have final cut and ultimate power, my name is still on it as director,” said Miller. So he fought for what he thought was important, even if they were minor items, like particularly poetic lines of dialogue. “I would fight for that line, because it was important to me. But does the audience really care? Probably not,” the director said. “As far as donnybrooks go, it's not that big of a deal.”

Cameron also wanted the humans to be winning the war with the machines in the future; Miller wanted them to be losing. Miller won that particular plot battle, but the idea of having to fight producers for every artistic choice wore the director down. He acknowledged that he doesn’t “want to be in a situation again where I don't have the control to do what I think is right," and that might mean not working with Cameron again.

This reflected work that he’d done in the past, namely on his directorial debut: Deadpool. “It became clear that Ryan [Reynolds] wanted to be in control of the franchise,” Miller said. “You can work that way as a director, quite successfully, but I can't.” Miller did not return to direct Deadpool 2, which was taken over by David Leitch.

But Miller and Cameron are still on good terms: "I just got an email last week from Jim,” Miller said, “who said, 'I know we clashed a little bit. I put it all down to two strong, creative people with differences of opinion and I think it made the movie better. I'll be back in L.A. in December. Let's go get a beer.'"

Next, Cloud Strife is on his way back to consoles as the Final Fantasy VII news keeps rolling out. The highly anticipated remake from Square Enix, which will update one of the best-loved RPGs of all time, has been buzzing in the minds of gamers since E3 and the Tokyo Game Show. Now the remake’s director, Tetsuya Nomura, has said that the fun won’t stop with the first game.

Writing on the official Square Enix blog, Nomura and his development team discussed the progress on Final Fantasy VII Remake — and dropped hints about a forthcoming episode in the series. “We’ve already begun working on the next one as well,” Nomura wrote, “but I’m confident that playing through this title will expand your expectations just like the world that extends beyond Midgar.”

This news, moving the second chapter up in the development cycle, comes alongside a few new screenshots of the game — including ones introducing the moogles and chocobos that Final Fantasy fans have come to expect:

Source: Square Enix

Source: Square Enix

There will also be new characters and bosses rounding out the experience in case fans were worried that splitting up the game into distinct chapters would rob it of its dense content.

The first episode of the corporation-battling game will hit PS4 on March 3, 2020.

Finally, AMC has released a strange teaser for an even stranger show to supplement its growing army of The Walking Dead series. In support of Dispatches From Elsewhere, an oddball anthology created by and starring Jason Segel, the following video takes genre fans into a world of spies, lies, and layers of reality. What’s real? Who knows? But it’s worth seeing for yourself as the characters tackle these dispatches and the challenges included within them.

Take a look:

The show will also bring Sally Field, Richard E. Grant, André Benjamin, and Eve Lindley into the 10-hour series of spycraft and strangeness. Echoes of Westworld and Mr. Robot abound, while even The Matrix seems to have some influence over a show that, as AMC’s official description reads, takes place in “a world of possibility and magic.”

Dispatches From Elsewhere will debut in 2020.