Terminator Salvation looks set to be one of the most talked-about movies of next year, even if much if the talk looks set to be “Oh lord, this is terrible.”

But because of all the pre-release hype surrounding Terminator Salvation, it’s almost certainly not going to be the last Terminator film. In fact, according to producers, Terminator 5 is now going to be rushed into cinemas by summer 2011.

Apparently to be set in the Middle East, Terminator 5 will revolve around the time when John Connor got a nasty scratch from some robot shrapnel and looked for treatment. It’ll be called Terminator Savlon. Sorry.

Terminator Salvation isn’t being released until the middle of next year, but already the hype onslaught has started. There are rumours that Arnold Schwarzenegger will be a Terminator in it, and that Christian Bale will become a Terminator at the end of it and that if anyone so much as mentions Terminator 3 or that bit from The Sarah Connor Chronicles with the toilet that turned into a Terminator who looked just like the singer from Garbage in it, they’ll be crushed.

Trouble is, though, at the moment Terminator Salvation looks rubbish.

Judging from the Terminator Salvation trailer – which is supposedly a collection of all the best bits from the movie – Christian Bale’s still doing his ridiculous indecipherable Batman growl and there’s a metal Cloverfield monster running about the place going apeshit at everyone. Worse still, we get the feeling that there won’t even be a naked Austrian cyborg from the future demanding that a truck driver lends him his trousers. And, after all, isn’t that what the Terminator movies are about?

But anyway, even if Terminator Salvation turns out to be an embarrassing mess it doesn’t matter – because according to Halcyon Co bigwigs Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek, Terminator 5 is already in the works. Variety reports:

The duo had originally planned to wait until the release of “Terminator Salvation” next summer before deciding on whether to proceed with the next chapter, but the positive studio, fan and media reaction to footage from the current pic has encouraged them to move forward ahead of schedule. “We feel the time is now to start shaping the next part of this,” Kubicek said.

That makes such good business sense – strike while the iron is hot. Hot and unfinished. Hot and unfinished and possibly a bit crap. There’s literally nothing that could go wrong with this plan whatsoever.

Apart from the fact that, you know, by announcing that there’s going to be a Terminator 5 before Terminator 4 has even been released it’s perfectly clear to everyone that John Connor won’t beat the Terminators for another film or two so it’s not really worth paying to go and see this one. But apart from that, it’s a genius plan.

In fact, it seems a bit pointless calling the new film Terminator Salvation at all, now that we know nothing will be salvaged until at least Terminator 5. Perhaps Halcyon will take this onboard – after all, it’s not too late to switch the word ‘Salvation’ for an equally pointless noun in the title. We were thinking maybe Terminator Pianola or Terminator Bum.

Unless, of course, the hidden twist of Terminator Salvation is that all the invincible killing machines are destroyed by the Salvation Army, who march through the post-apocalyptic wasteland blowing up the robots by playing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen on the tuba. If that’s the case we take it back. We take it all back.

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