The Box Office wasn't that bad. A lot of studios would like to make over $260 million on a film.
It's a lot worse than it looks. The breakdown was $62M domestic (which is just pathetic for a Terminator movie and supposed blockbluster) and $188M international. That's important because most of a studio's profits come from the domestic. They receive about 55% of domestic receipts and only 15% of international, so a movie that does a lot better internationally than at home is bad news for the studio. 55% of $62M is $34M and 15% of $188M is $28M. That adds up to only $62M that Paramount "made" after spending $185M making it.
The production budget was so high though that it ended in deficit for the studios and it gets negative press for that. I think they can continue this project if they can produce sequels for less. But if the aim was mainly to create a marvel-size revenue making franchise, the results might dictate they drop it. Good action scenes though, but I found the storyline reasoning somewhat jumbled (story written by Hollywood committee)
I don't see how that's possible because the budget would have to be under $60M to make a profit on a movie that does only as well as this one. You
can make movies for less than that, but not ones with the CGI and practical special effects that are expected and almost required from a Terminator film and not with star power.
The big problem that I see is that domestic audiences are losing interest in the franchise. See the table below.
| Year | Title | Domestic BO |
| 1991 | Terminator 2: Judgment Day | $203,464,105 |
| 2003 | Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines | $150,358,296 |
| 2009 | Terminator Salvation | $125,322,469 |
| 2015 | Terminator: Genisys | $89,760,956 |
| 2019 | Terminator: Dark Fate | $62,253077 |
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Notice how the domestic box office has been steadily going down, and that's not even taking into account inflation (ex. T2 made $381M domestically in the same 2019 dollars that Dark Fate made only $62M of). American audiences are really souring on the franchise. That should've been apparent after Genisys. Even though it grossed $432M worldwide, much more than Dark Fate, it actually lost money because 3/4ths of that came from international markets. It was supposed to be the start of a trilogy, but its failure led to the cancellation of that idea and the selling of the franchise rights to James Cameron. Not even his renewed involvement and the return of Linda Hamilton were enough to get American butts in seats, though.
Even if you somehow were able to make a Terminator movie for under $100M, much less under $60M, it'd still be risky because American audiences aren't going out to see them. I'm sure that there will be more Terminator movies eventually, but I suspect that it won't be for a while, until the demand returns. Time might take care of that, but what I think might eventually happen is that someone will make a Terminator TV series (hopefully a premium player like Netflix or HBO, not CBS or SyFy). If done well, it could re-ignite interest, sort of like how The Mandalorian has restored a little bit of faith with fans upset with Disney over the latest Star Wars trilogy, and then whoever holds the rights at the time may feel brave enough to finance another Terminator movie to try to capitalize on it. Barring that, though, the franchise will probably be in a coma for a long while, IMO.
