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Scott Lumley: Well, the show never had a ton of support to begin with (which may have something to do with a truncated first season and the network changing the showtime every 15 minutes...), so I think this comes down to lack of Arnold and bad word-of-mouth.

Max Braden: I've only heard positive things about the series from people who've watched it, but the watchers clearly weren't a large enough group to make a difference. I think that had Schwarzenegger just pushed on the marketing side even without being the film's star, that could have bumped up the box office. (If he appeared on any late night shows in the last two weeks, I missed it.)

David Mumpower: The debut of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles had 11.4 million viewers. That's the equivalent of an $82 million opening weekend. If they'd ignored it, that would have been one thing. Instead, they watched it and weren't impressed. That's much worse...and more than a little depressing.

Brandon Scott: I think the series probably hurt it, but I suspect most people view the TV show as a knock-off of sorts, rather than a legitimate entity that supports what the film franchise has been (at least the first two films). The lack of the Pumping Iron star hurt a lot to fans of the original films. To new fans, it's just another action movie, no different than a Chronicles of Riddick or the like. In the end, I say Arnie is the bigger issue for this question, but ultimately, it sounds as if they just blew the product.

Reagen Sulewski: Lets not forget that it's been 25 years since the first Terminator film. While there's been valiant (and in my eyes, successful) efforts towards keeping the franchise fresh, people are smelling a whiff of mold on it. Look at Die Hard, which tried a fourth film 20 years after the first, with much of the same result.

Jim Van Nest: I'm thinking it could also be the timeframe of the new film. Maybe people just liked the idea of going back into the past trying to change the future. But the way Rise of the Machines ended, they basically let us know that there was no way to avoid the inevitable. And I'm thinking people really don't care what happened after Judgment Day. Especially considering they weren't all that impressed with the Matrix's version of "after judgment day."

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