Gale Anne Hurd, 'Terminator' producer, reveals about key scene that director cuts

Gale Anne Hurd, the producer of The Terminator, has revealed a crucial sequence that James Cameron had to delete from the 1984 movie because funders insisted on having their friends appear in it.

On Wednesday, the producer-writer shared the relevant clip on X (formerly known as Twitter), which demonstrates how Cyberdyne Systems, the tech company in charge of creating Skynet, acquired the computer chip used in Terminators.

“#TheTerminator financier John Daly’s #HemdaleFilms had an output deal with #OrionPictures but hadn’t yet made a hit (that changed with our film and #Platoon),” Hurd, who was married to Cameron from 1985-89, wrote. “They insisted we use financier friends not actors in this scene, which ruined it for us.”

Hurd added that the financier’s friends were paid as actors because of the Taft–Hartley Act. “I think he insisted they be in the film because the financiers were promised a return on their investment and had yet to receive one,” she said of Daly, who died in 2008. “Daly never believed the film would be a success.”

Hurd said, "Jim (thankfully) was never satisfied with 'just ok', even back then! ", in response to a fan who questioned why Cameron removed the sequence because they believed the performers appeared "fine I guess performance-wise."

Arnold Schwarzenegger's career was launched by The Terminator, which went on to be a huge success and spawned five sequels.

The star of the movie recently asserted that The Terminator foretold the future of artificial intelligence, a contentious subject in Hollywood.

“Today, everyone is frightened of it, of where this is gonna go,” he said at an event in June. “And in this movie, in Terminator, we talk about the machines becoming self-aware and they take over.”

He added, “At that time we (had) scratched the surface of AI, artificial intelligence. Think about that. … Now over the course of decades, it has become a reality. So it’s not any more fantasy or kind of futuristic. It is here today. And so this is the extraordinary writing of Jim Cameron.”