Arnold Schwarzenegger’s $261M Sci-Fi Thriller Wins New Streaming Resurgence After Becoming Infamous Box Office Bomb

Schwarzenegger has a handful of iconic characters and franchises under his belt, but The Terminator arguably stands at the top of that list. After appearing in one form or another in all five installments in the franchise, Schwarzenegger returned for Terminator: Dark Fate in 2019, a film that significantly underperformed in theaters.

Though it landed with a thud seven years ago, Terminator: Dark Fate is now connecting with viewers on streaming, as it currently stands as the fifth most popular movie on Paramount+ in the U.S. The action sci-fi film beats some notable titles in the streamer’s daily top 10, including Paw Patrol: Super Charged (2018), Top Gun: Maverick (2022), Big Jake (1971), and The Running Man (2025).

The most recent Terminator movie falls behind an array of children’s movies and an R-rated horror flick. Primate (2025) comes in first place in the daily top 10, followed by The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), Paw Patrol: Rescue Wheels (2024), and The SpongeBob Movie: The Search for SquarePants (2025).

Made on a budget estimated to be as high as $196 million, Dark Fate grossed only $261 million worldwide. Using the standard Hollywood rule of thumb for calculating break-even points, the film may have needed to gross as much as $490 million in order to turn a profit.

Directed by Tim Miller, the sixth Terminator film brings Schwarzenegger back as the T-800 and Linda Hamilton back as Sarah Connor, this time to stop an advanced liquid cyborg from killing a young girl who is key to humanity’s future. Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, and Gabriel Luna also star, with franchise creator James Cameron serving as producer.

Dark Fate film may have fared generally well with critics, sporting a 70% Rotten Tomatoes score, but the box office result meant that the film essentially put the movie arm of the franchise on ice. There has been no new Terminator movie since 2019, but an animated series called Terminator Zero ran for one season in 2024.

Recently, though, Cameron has confirmed that he’s working on a script for Terminator 7. The project remains in development, but the filmmaker has confirmed that it will be an entirely new story without the T-800, Sarah Connor, or really any existing franchise iconography.

As audiences await news on the future of the franchise, Terminator: Dark Fate is evidently proving to be a film worth revisiting. Though many questions remain about what’s next, the 2019 film marks the end of the line for the franchise’s two most iconic characters, and that alone could explain why it’s now experiencing a resurgence on streaming.