Back in 2009, director McG made Terminator Salvation, a film that had the courage to move the franchise away from a rehash of an attempt on the life of a young John Connor by a Terminator sent back in time. Instead, the movie told a tale where Skynet has finally taken over the world, and humanity is in a war for survival. In an interview, McG revealed that there exists a director's cut of the film that the general audience has not yet seen.

"It's interesting because I feel like we did so much right with Terminator but, ultimately, got just enough wrong that we got beat up a little bit by the fanbase and it really, really broke my heart. And now, strangely, I think the film has started to age better. And there is a different cut: I have my own cut of that film and there's people online that talk about wanting to see that cut. And that's interesting! But I think I got a lot of things right with that."

In Terminator: Salvation, John Connor, played by Christian Bale, has assumed his destiny as the leader of the human survivors, fighting an increasingly desperate battle to stave off Skynet's attempts to eradicate humanity off the face of the earth. At the same time, Marcus Wright, played by Sam Worthington, wakes up in a post-apocalyptic world that he does not recognize, and stumbles into the middle of the resistance led by Connor as they plot to bring down Skynet once and for all.

While it's clear a lot of effort went into making the movie, whose premise was suggested by Cameron himself as a way to move the Terminator franchise forward, audience reaction proved tepid. Many complained that Arnold Schwarzenegger's absence took away from the story's entertainment quotient, while the new main characters, from a grown-up Jonh Connor to a young Kyle Reese and the human-terminator hybrid Marcus Wright were seen as poor substitutes.

Still, Terminator Salvation has built up something of a cult following in the years following its release, and fans would be very interested in watching a longer, darker cut of the movie that McG says might land better with audiences than the theatrical cut.

"Obviously, I think [uncredited screenwriter] Jonah Nolan is very, very serious writer and he did the best he could. And Christian [Bale] is maybe the most talented actor working today and Sam [Worthington] did a really good job also. I think I got to take the punch on that one for not quite nailing the landing on the final expression of that movie and, who knows, maybe the cut that I have of that movie hidden away is the answer. It's darker! [Laughs] I don't know, that's for the fans to say."

So perhaps it's time to start the #ReleasetheMcGCut movement for Terminator: Salvation fans. It can't be any worse than later entries in the franchise that went back to the "Terminator sent back in time" formula again and again with increasingly diminishing results. This news comes from ComicBookResources.