Ever wondered why theres no archival vintage footage of shooting The Terminator on any DVD or bluray extras or even documentaries? Well, theres a footage of shooting the miniatures but that was made away from the live shot. The reason behind it is simple - nobody shot it because no one would know the movie would be of any greater significance. It was a low budget movie with a debuting, very young director, who only had Piranha II to his credit, unbeknownst to anyone yet that he didn't really shoot it.
However, a lot of behind the scene footage was shot for a mini TV documentary produced by Drew Cummings who did short episodes about making movies for TV, and The Terminator was one of those featured movies. The documentary features interviews with a very young Jim Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, Linda Hamilton and Stan Winston, along with footage of shooting the escape from Tech Noir and running away from the endoskeleton to the factory at the end of the movie
Now, the reason why none of the footage ever made it to any The Terminator VHS, Laserdisc, DVD or Bluray or any other form of home video is because Drew Cummings did not reach an agreement with the producers.
Van Ling, producer of many The Terminator and T2 editions in 2007: As for the behind-the-scenes footage and 1984 interviews, I have been pursuing that material for literally 15 years and it's probably not going to happen. The person who purportedly "owns" the material wants six figures (basically, a large percentage of what the studio is spending on the entire disc) for the use of just the edited 20-minute "Making of" piece they did for TV syndication in 1984, and claims not to have any of the original raw footage any more. He will not allow us to review the footage before paying him (I had to find an old commercial VHS copy of the edited piece on eBay), and he and the studio have been in a longstanding dispute over the material: he claims that he owns it outright, while the studio claims they do, and will not pay him for something they feel they already own. The fact that his original deal was with the produciton company Hemdale, which was bought out by MGM a decade ago and no longer exists, only complicates things. It's a real shame, since he really can't commercially use or post the footage because it's of the studio's intellectual property and technically contains footage from the final film, and we can't use it because actual material may in fact be owned by him and he'll sue over its use (again) even though he has no rights over the IP content itself. It's a big mess, and sadly, will likely not get resolved. The amount of money he wants for it is way over what it's worth to the studio (they know that apart from a few fans, no one is going to pay extra for the disc just to see this material), and if he doesn't have the original tape footage (rather than the already-edited material), there is even less incentive to meet his price.
That was in 1997 on HomeTheater forum, and the agreement has not been reached to this day, and the only extras on The Terminator bluray today is the footage of Miniatures and a mini doc on the music of the film.
Drew Cummings did release the DVD however by himself, through Amazon with a cover thats been insanely amateruish. Van Ling's comments did reach him and he did comment on the issue on Amazon's comment section
Drew Cummings replied: "From 1983 to 1989 I produced and own the “Making Of:” series, which includes Robocop, Terminator and roughly 40 other films. I was not hired by the studios and I funded the entire production myself at a time when the studios and directors were reluctant to give away hollywood special effects and stunt secrets on how films were made. I financed the entire series (52 half-hour) episodes, and that is why I own the footage and copyrights on the behind-the-scenes footage. Today, the studios own all of the behind-the-scenes footage from their films in part because I showed them that there was a value for such material.
"I have no aversion to selling or licensing my footage, or for that matter selling the masters and copyrights to the right buyer. I just want a reasonable fee. So far, no studio has made a reasonable offer. The Biography channel just did a two hour “Nightmare On Elm Street” retrospective that was highlighted by talking heads and still photos. It would have been so much more entertaining and interesting to the viewer if it contained actual behind-the-scenes footage of the makeup, special FX, and stunts I own. I didn’t even receive a call from the producers, and MGM is aware of my one hour Nightmare special, as was Warner Bros. who will be releasing the current Nightmare film from 2010. As for the price of the Terminator DVD on Amazon, it is selling quite well, and building every month, as does Robocop, and Nightmare On Elm Street. I am sorry if anyone views the price as too high.
"I plan on releasing more episodes from the series in the next few months. From time to time I will license or even GIVE footage to shows like 60 Minutes if they are paying a tribute to the directors or actors for their scope of work, but I am not prepared to give unique and valuable footage to the studios to add onto their DVD’s without a fair fee. I took the risk of funding the production of the behind-the-scenes footage for my series, and the shows aired the same week the film was released in the theatres, so the studios received nationwide coverage for zero dollars. In some most cases some of the films we covered were so bad we couldn’t even make a licensing deal in the VHS market.
"“The Making Of:” weekly half hour series I started in the 1983 defined a whole new genre called docu-tainment. Subsequently, the studios realized the value of the behind-the-scenes long format shows and specials that I pioneered, and started producing and owning them themselves. All I know is that I am very blessed and have had the opportunity to work with hundreds of actors, directors, FX wizards, and filmmakers on locations around the world, on a weekly series that defined a new form of documentary filmmaking that can be found on every DVD released today."
The Making of The Terminator is not being sold as DVD anymore but is still available for purchase on Amazon video these days
Go back to http://www.jamescamerononline.com/TerminatorTrilogy.htm