The Terminator said he’d be back, and by golly, he wasn’t kidding. Warner Bros. has acquired the distribution rights to Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, the fourth film in the Terminator series. Set to begin production in 2008 and hit theaters in the summer of 2009, Salvation is being touted as a franchise jumpstart which will be told over a three-movie span.

It has been nearly 5 years since the last Terminator film, Rise of the Machines, hit theaters and Salvation is planned to be a movie of equal size and budget. With the script completed, producers are hinting at a general plot – set in the future during a full-scale war between man and machines. The new trilogy will involve characters from the first films but will be presented in a fresh setting beyond the world fans were introduced to in the original trilogy.

Glorified music video director McG has been tapped to direct while the door has been left open for Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger to make a cameo.  Next year will mark another big event for the Terminator franchise as the long-awaited The Sarah Connor Chronicles makes its television debut on FOX. The series picks up where T2 left off and stars 300’s Lena Headey as the kick-ass Connor. Whether sci-fi fans will take to the series is yet to be seen, but there is little doubt in my mind that this franchise still has legs.