!['Terminator Zero' Trailer.](https://cdn.statically.io/img/dnm.nflximg.net/api/v6/2DuQlx0fM4wd1nzqm5BFBi6ILa8/AAAAQZQUgQZ7fnU8Z712eAJo1Z_3d3RrdY8QX2kgQ-2kWhkW7gnoIsw9xuaSFJUdBdu0nM5flbCNOrGkBDCYujQpv_zJr9vq2cLmta4dIan2JC3N0a6TfuxJnTWg625T2p0bTC0nvHmIF-aXn-EtzyxmV4L9.jpg?r=de0)
!['Terminator Zero' Trailer.](https://cdn.statically.io/img/dnm.nflximg.net/api/v6/2DuQlx0fM4wd1nzqm5BFBi6ILa8/AAAAQZQUgQZ7fnU8Z712eAJo1Z_3d3RrdY8QX2kgQ-2kWhkW7gnoIsw9xuaSFJUdBdu0nM5flbCNOrGkBDCYujQpv_zJr9vq2cLmta4dIan2JC3N0a6TfuxJnTWg625T2p0bTC0nvHmIF-aXn-EtzyxmV4L9.jpg?r=de0)
On Judgment Day, everything will change. Until then, you can get ready for the end of the world by watching the apocalyptic, face-melting trailer for Terminator Zero, the eight-episode anime series coming to Netflix Aug. 29, featuring the voices of Timothy Olyphant, Rosario Dawson, André Holland, Sonoya Mizuno, and Ann Dowd — see above.
In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the Arnold Schwarzenegger–led highest grossing film of 1991, it’s revealed that Aug. 29, 1997 is the date that the artificial intelligence network known as Skynet becomes self-aware and usurps its human masters, leading to an all-out war between humanity and machines. Encompassing flesh-and-blood resistance fighters and time-traveling cyborgs, this battle spans across the last decades of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st.
Terminator Zero, created and executive produced by Mattson Tomlin (Project Power, The Batman II), will be part of the Terminator universe but will center on characters we haven’t met yet. Keep reading if you want to live … or if you want to know everything there is to know so far about Terminator Zero.
2022: A future war has raged for decades between the few human survivors and an endless army of machines. 1997: The AI known as Skynet gained self-awareness and began its war against humanity.
Caught between the future and this past is a soldier sent back in time to change the fate of humanity. She arrives in 1997 to protect a scientist named Malcolm Lee who works to launch a new AI system designed to compete with Skynet’s impending attack on humanity. As Malcolm navigates the moral complexities of his creation, he’s hunted by an unrelenting assassin from the future, which forever alters the fate of his three children.
“I was looking at the franchise and the first two movies in particular,” Tomlin tells Tudum. “And why are we still talking about this franchise 40 years later? You strip away killer robots, you strip away Judgment Day, what do you have left? You have stories about families.”
Check back for more casting updates, both human and cyborg.
The main trailer right at the top of this article will blast you through time to the sound of The Smashing Pumpkins.
The upcoming anime series will be executive produced by Skydance, Japan animation studio Production I.G., and creator Mattson Tomlin. Tomlin, who’ll serve as the showrunner and writer for the series, previously wrote Project Power (starring Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt) for Netflix and is currently writing The Batman II.
“Anyone who knows my writing knows I believe in taking big swings and going for the heart,” Tomlin said in 2021. “I’m honored that Netflix and Skydance have given me the opportunity to approach Terminator in a way that breaks conventions, subverts expectations, and has real guts.”
Check out the above stills from Terminator Zero.
As the teaser reminds us, there’s no fate but what we make for ourselves. Prepare for your fate when Terminator Zero arrives on the anniversary of Judgment Day, Aug. 29.