SHOWRUNNER EXCLUSIVE
Parallel Doomsday
Terminator Zero creator Mattson Tomlin explains where the anime series fits within canon
WORDS: TARA BENNETT
Eiko (voiced by Sonoya Mizuno) gets gunny.
Timothy Olyphant voices the Terminator.
Meanwhile, André Holland voices Malcolm Lee.
“I’LL BE BACK.” FORTY YEARS after Arnold Schwarzenegger first uttered that line as the T-800 in The Terminator, it’s been a promise fulfilled over and over. Fans of the franchise haven’t had to suffer more than six years between new Terminator films, a television series, videogames or theme park rides. The latest spinoff is Netflix’s Terminator Zero, the first in-canon anime series from animation studio Production IG, director Masashi Kudō and writer Mattson Tomlin.
Ironically, Tomlin was working on his own original cyborg story, Mother/Android, in 2020 when he was approached to pitch an idea for a Terminator anime series. Interested, Tomlin tells Red Alert that he was even more receptive when he was given creative carte blanche.