Christian Bale, best known for playing Batman in the Dark Knight trilogy, became John Connor for Terminator Salvation, only to never return. Bale, an Oscar-winner, is generally regarded as one of the best actors of his generation, with the beginning of his ascent to the A-list often considered to be playing Patrick Bateman in 2000's American Psycho. Outside of playing Gotham's resident superhero though, Bale doesn't really do many blockbusters, preferring instead to do award-magnet dramas or comedies like Vice or Ford v Ferrari.
In fact, back when Bale was cast in Terminator Salvation, between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, many wondered if this would be a switch for him to more franchise roles. As it turns out, the answer to that question has been no, with Bale not appearing in a single sequel, prequel, or remake post-Batman. That will finally change in 2022, as he's set for a so far undisclosed role in MCU sequel Thor: Love and Thunder.
Since there have been Terminator movies following Salvation, some fans might wonder while Bale never reprized the John Connor role. The superficial answer might seem to be that Salvation wasn't very well liked, but things are actually a bit more complicated.
Terminator Salvation was met with negative reviews from critics, and a very tepid fan response, and also did only ok at the box office, failing to even double its exorbitantly large $200 million budget. Still, that in and of itself wasn't necessarily the death knell for Salvation's planned sequels, as the film was meant to start a new trilogy, with Christian Bale returning. What ended those plans was rights holder The Halcyon Company going bankrupt not long after the film's release. The rights to Terminator were then sold to a hedge fund called Pacificor, and later auctioned off to Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures, who then got her brother David's Skydance Productions in on things.
That all took several years to happen though, and by then, the Ellisons' weren't interested in making a sequel to Salvation, presumably because of its bad reputation. Instead, they ended up rebooting the series slightly with 2015's Terminator Genisys, which brought back Arnold Schwarzenegger, but acknowledged only the first two Terminator films, while taking place in an alternate timeline. Jason Clarke ended up playing John Connor in Genisys, although accounts differ as to whether Bale was even approached to return to the part, or whether he was simply unavailable. Considering Bale has since spoken at length about how he regrets ever appearing in Terminator Salvation, and feels that the film didn't work, it's very likely he would've declined if asked anyway.
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