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EXCLUSIVE: Linda Hamilton In Negotiations For 'Terminator Salvation'

“We are talking,” Hamilton told us during a wide-ranging conversation for her Movie Badass selection. “I haven’t read it yet. I don’t know what direction they will go in.”

While she awaits the specifics in a script, Hamilton already knows what her role generally would be. “My contribution would be voiceover,” she said. “I would probably be very happy to loan my voice depending on what the material is. Wait and see. They’re already writing it. We’ve been negotiating it.”

News of Hamilton’s likely involvement jibes with word coming out of last weekend’s New York Comic-Con, where “Salvation” director McG intimated that her participation in the reboot is essential. “She’s the greatest,” he said of Sarah Connor, adding that as an integral figure in franchise mythology, “one can imagine she plays an important role.”

Since he first began discussing the project and showing early footage, McG has been winning fans among the “Terminator” faithful for his commitment to honor the original films—a stance that Hamilton didn’t feel the makers of “T3” took. “They offered me a part,” she said. “I read it and I knew my character arc was so complete in the first two, and in the third one it was a negligible character. She died halfway through and there was no time to mourn her. It was kind of disposable, so I said no thank you.”

“I think [director] Jim [Cameron] was pretty clearly not going to be involved with the third one,” she continued. “His partner had sold the rights to the third one. Then they came back to Jim, but it was so far along after the fact that he’d moved on. And I wouldn’t be involved with it if it weren’t Jim Cameron. The third one was all right but it just didn’t have the heat and excitement that Jim can bring.”

Of course, Cameron isn’t involved in the fourth “Terminator” either. Like many fans, however, Hamilton seems to be giving McG’s new version the benefit of the doubt. “It would be great fun,” she said.

Happy with a Hamilton voiceover or would you like to see her in the flesh—perhaps in a flashback or time travel sequence? Without James Cameron’s involvement, do you think “Salvation” can capture the insane awesomeness of the first two pictures, or will it be another “T3”-style disappointment?

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