Hannover House and Annapurna Pictures currently hold the rights to The Terminator franchise, which revert back to James Cameron in 2018. While Terminator 5 has long been rumored to be the next film in the franchise, directed by Justin Lin and returning Arnold Schwarzenegger to the role that made him a worldwide icon, an animated feature film titled Terminator 3000 may come first.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is rumored to be interested in voicing the lead character, which will be CG animated in the same style as James Cameron's Avatar. A new piece of concept art, a title treatment created to help pitch the film, has been revealed. The second image is from Terminator Salvation, but offers a hint at what this new project will look like. Check it out below.

Hannover House President and Terminator 3000 developer Eric Parkinson discussed the project in length. Here is what he had to say.

"It's in the time being in the hands of Annapurna Productions, whether or not they want to proceed. We reached out to them, communicated with her council and expressed our outline with the basic story structure with the proposed principal creative team and how it can be financed and how Annapurna Productions can make a lot of money with upfront licensing. But there are issues at play that I am not privy to. I think that most people are aware of how long this ticking bomb that this The Terminator licensing exists before it goes back to James Cameron."

About Arnold Schwarzenegger's involvement in the film, Eric Parkinson had this to say.

"I had the opportunity to talk about it with Arnold at the MidCOM Market, when they announced his proposed cartoon series. So I was there and he remembered me from Hemdale and I told him, I am still trying to develop an animated thing, but that's about when the bad news came out. But my feeling is, he is and will always be one of the biggest stars in the world. I think he'd do the voice of the T-800 in this proposed Terminator 3000. We're excited about it, and we think it makes perfect sense and with all due respect to Arnold, I think this would be another great and quick way for him to get another movie out with just a short time in a recording studio.

We can create a character of him in his absolute peak. What we have in mind is something very similar to what James Cameron utilized in Avatar in that we would use motion capture to create the base files of the bulk performers, including The Terminator. But yeah, it would be more of a 3D style motion capture proposed to live actors.

We have a good outline. We have a great story, and we potentially don't want to turn it into a script now, because there's going to be some creative input and we don't want to paint ourselves into a corner and say, no, we envision it a different way. But we've got a pretty good framework for what we think will work. Who knows if this concept fits their overall plan for the franchise? Personally, I think it's kicks-ass and would be a boost to the Terminator brand by introducing a new generation of viewers."

Terminator 3000 is being created on spec, and will need the approval and license of Annapurna Productions before it can proceed any further.