James Cameron clarifies Arnold Schwarzenegger's role in next 'Terminator' sequel

James Cameron made it clear that Arnold Schwarzenegger will not appear in the upcoming Terminator installment.

The 71-year-old filmmaker gave the shocking update during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

"I can safely say he won't be," confessed James. "It's time for a new generation of characters."

"I insisted Arnold had to be involved in Terminator: Dark Fate, and it was a great finish to him playing the T-800," continued the Avatar: Fire and Ash director.

James added, "There needs to be a broader interpretation of Terminator and the idea of a time war and super intelligence. I want to do new stuff that people aren't imagining."

For those unversed, Arnold has appeared in every Terminator film to date except 2009's Terminator Salvation.

Earlier this year, the 78-year-old actor said that Salvation was his least favorite movie because he wasn't in it.

"How do you do a Terminator movie without me being in the Terminator movie? It doesn't make any sense," he told Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live.

Meanwhile, James is super excited to start work on the seventh Terminator movie.

"Once the dust clears on Avatar in a couple of months, I'm going to really plunge into that," he said. "There are a lot of narrative problems to solve. The biggest is how do I stay enough ahead of what's really happening to make it science fiction?"