Believe it or not, there was a time when Terminator: Salvation was slated to kick off a new trilogy that would breathe fresh life into the franchise.

The movie stars Christian Bale as John Connor, and unlike the other films, it takes place after Judgment Day, during humanity’s struggle against Skynet.

Following his appearances in Batman Begins, The New World, 3:10 TO YUMA, and The Dark Knight, Bale’s decision to feature in the fourth Terminator picture looked unusual, but he admitted to Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast that he actually turned down the part three times before taking it out of spite.

“I said no three times. I thought that the franchise… I went ‘Nah, there’s no story there,’” Bale said. “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 verbalizing 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.”

The picture was harmed by “an unfortunate series of events,” according to Bale, including the Writers Guild of America strike in 2007–08 and the resignation of Westworld co-showrunner Jonathan Nolan, who departed the project after handing it a “wonderful” screenplay.

“It’s a great thorn in my side, because I wish we could have reinvigorated [the franchise. And unfortunately, during production, you could tell that wasn’t happening. It’s a great shame.”

Those problems weren’t the only ones to arise during the filming of Terminator: Salvation, as recordings of Christian Bale yelling obscenities at director of photography Shane Hurlbut for strolling onto the set during a scene eventually surfaced. “That was a very unusual occasion. Great learning lesson for me,” Bale remarked of the incident. “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.”

Bale previously said that his role as Batman in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy left him unsatisfied.

Further away, Skynet is undergoing a hard reset, while Tim Miller and series veteran James Cameron are planning a sixth Terminator film for July 26th, 2019.

Bale is presently filming Backseat, a biopic on Dick Cheney. He also appears totally unrecognizable in the leaked set images, having added a few kg to resemble the former US vice president.