Ever since Terminator: Dark Fate was announced long ago, I knew my entire crew of the world’s biggest Terminator and Arnold fans would want to fly out to be by my side and to help me interview Arnold and the rest at the red carpet premiere. Counting down the many, many months until the premiere was an agonizing wait as we knew we would be living large in the glitz and glamour of this film’s finest offerings of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Tim Miller, James Cameron, Mackenzie Davis, Edward Furlong Gabriel Luna, Natalia Reyes as well as many other surprise guests!
TheArnoldFans had a secured spot on the red carpet and also had a ticket to the star-attended movie premiere. A couple of us even had a pass to the after-party so you can imagine my excitement, but unfortunately, as you all know, due to the terrible wild fire that broke out, the Hollywood red carpet was CANCELLED! We completely understand why Paramount called it off as many homes and lives were in jeopardy.
Even though we completely understood the right decision to cancel, when we first heard the news of the cancelation, we were temporarily devastated as my staff flew all the way across the country and spent an insane amount of money to be here. Still, life goes on and we were all so grateful that everyone was at least safe. It could have been worse so we shook off our selfish disappointment and decided to make the very best of our time in Los Angeles together.
Our first stop was to visit the largest Terminator: Dark Fate advertisement, which was as big as a nine-story building. Paramount and Skydance Productions did a great job with advertising in Los Angeles on many billboards, murals and buses.
The night before, we did a drive-by of the Hollywood premiere location and we saw many trucks and a crew already at work setting up. At this time, there were no cast images or logos anywhere.
Now that we were back around 9:30am in the area, we decided to head back to the premiere location as we knew the decorations must have come a long way since and we wanted to visit the site before the crew started to tear it all down.
TheArnoldFans gained exclusive access onto the red carpet (actually black carpet for the Terminator theme), to give you all a glimpse as to what it could have looked like and what would have happened if the show went on!
We saw several large Terminator banners, now with the movie poster graphics, as well as single images of the stars. The black carpet was fully laid down, the press check-in tables were assembled, the massive stage with stairs was built and a pile of Terminator rubble blocks were all near a break-through wall that a JEEP would crash through later that evening. We imagine Linda Hamilton or Arnold Schwarzenegger would have been behind the wheel ready to make that grand entrance and emerge from the Jeep.
There were construction plans on the ground that we saw that showed the path which the stars would walk. It also showed the police barricades, the path where the Jeep would drive, the location of the giant LED video screen, a fan pit that could hold 200 lucky ticket winners, and another spot to hold 115 fans. TheArnoldFans was to have a prime spot in the Video Interview section for our many interviews, which was to be in the center of the action. 40 photographers would be in the photo pit as well.
While we were never able to meet Arnold like we had hoped at the Hollywood premiere, TheArnoldFans did get an exclusive interview from Schwarzenegger. We may not have had the glamorous evening we had all hoped for at the premiere but with some hard work and persistence, our full team still managed to get that Arnold photo and encounter that we had all hoped for. Thank you Arnold!
TheArnoldFans group photo from left to right: Ryan Gillen, Adrian Pavel, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Randy Jennings and Brandon Krum. Special thanks to Paramount Pictures, Devein Ho for additional Terminator contest prizes, and our driver Chris Heathcoat.
