Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron argued over “I’ll be back” line
It may surprise you to read that actor, ex-bodybuilder and former governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, had some initial reservations about the famous “I’ll be back” line from the 1984 sci-fi hit The Terminator.
The film, which sees Schwarzenegger as a cold, calculated murder machine sent back from the future, became a cult classic, destroying the box office and spawning a franchise consisting of comic books, video games, a television series and a series of films that continues to this day. It launched the careers of director James Cameron, who helmed Aliens two years later and put Schwarzenegger on the map as an acting tour de force, revisiting the science-fiction horror genre with Predators in 1987.
Whilst The Terminator is remembered fondly for its high-concept and strangely relevant themes of the threat of Artificial Intelligence, combined with its shameless action and gore. Schwarzenegger’s stiff portrayal of the killer robot remains one of the most performances in cinema history, despite the actor not necessarily wanting to play the role. There’s one line, however, that embodies The Terminator the best: “I’ll be back”.
It’s one of the most quoted lines from a movie ever, but Schwarzenegger recently recalls not just having doubts about it but getting into a confrontation with director Cameron too. In his new Netflix documentary, Arnold, the 75-year-old Austrian American, and Cameron discuss how exactly the incident went down.
“Sometime in the middle of the shoot, we’re doing this police station scene. The line is, ‘I’ll come back.’ It wasn’t meant to be like a big moment at all,” said Cameron, who also co-wrote the screenplay for The Terminator. “It was literally meant to be, on its face, ‘No problem, I’ll come back.’ For some reason, Arnold didn’t say, ‘I’ll come back.’ I said, ‘Well, just say ‘I’ll be back’. Keep it simple.’”
After trying the line several times in various different ways, Schwarzenegger still wasn’t having it and insisted on the addition of “will”, as in: “I will be back”. This, however, did not go down too well with Cameron: “He says, ‘Are you the writer?’” Schwarzenegger recounts. “And I said, ‘No,’ and he said, ‘Well, don’t tell me how to fucking write.’”
Ultimately, the will of the director prevailed, but Schwarzenegger has the grace to admit that Cameron was “absolutely right”, concluding that “It became the most quoted movie line, I think, in the history of motion pictures. So this just shows to you who was right and who was wrong.”
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