Did the Terminator franchise really need to live on past James Cameron's excellent T2: Judgment Day? Probably not! But Hollywood can't let a good (or moneymaking) franchise die. And so after the strong performance of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, not even franchise star Arnold Schwarzenegger leaving movies for the world of politics could kill the series. But what is a franchise to do when it's under new ownership and it's lost it's usual leading man? The makers of the fourth entry decided to use the opportunity to finally deliver a movie the franchise's fans had been clamoring for since the beginning - a film set entirely during the post Judgment Day future war. And they recruited two new powerhouse leading men to front it - Christian Bale, a newly minted Hollywood blockbuster star after the mega-success of The Dark Knight, and Sam Worthington, a name on the rise about to also star in the same year's most anticipated blockbuster, Avatar (from, yep...James Cameron). So what could possibly go wrong? Well, the pre-release leak of audio of Bale freaking out and yelling at a crewmember, which overshadowed much else of the film's release, might be the start of the answer...but what about the movie itself? Join us as we start out new theme month - "No Fate But What We MAYke" - as we discuss 2009's Terminator Salvation!

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"Misfired Cannons" comes to a conclusion as a post Golan & Globus era Cannon limps to its final days amidst new ownership but continued, and growing, financial woes. In a blatant attempt to try to recapture some of their past glory, Cannon looked to start a new franchise that might capture the same fans as those of one of its most popular previous successful series, American Ninja. So, recruiting one of the stars of that franchise, and the director of the first installments, Cannon unleashed American Samurai. But even with the lowered expectations of a straight-to-video release, this film didn't enjoy the same financial or cult success of the American Ninja series. So, what went wrong? We discuss leading man (and another important Cannon figure) David Bradley, the onscreen debut of martial arts star Mark Dacascos, the movie's strange "love story," its similarities to American Ninja, and why its attempt to also copy the recent success of another martial arts movie, Bloodsport, may have been its downfall.

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It's the third installment of "Misfired Cannons," and time to look at what happens when Cannon Films decides to work with one of Hollywood's biggest megastars. Sylvester Stallone was riding high off the success of both the Rocky and Rambo franchises in the mid-80s, so deciding to launch a new action franchise with the notoriously frugal and not always successful Cannon might have seemed a strange, unexpected move. So what sort of deal did Cannon offer Stallone to make it hard to resist? What other surprising 80s hit was Stallone originally attached to and oddly led to the creation of this film? Why is there controversy regarding who really directed the movie? How effective is the movie's blend of action and horror? We discuss all this and more, as we look at 1986's Cobra, pig!

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