The Terminator franchise has been built around one consistent fact; John Connor is the man who leads the human race to victory against the machines. But now that James Cameron has the franchise back in his control he is about to make a huge change. The Terminator franchise will no longer see John Connor as the key to civilization's victory over a future robot uprising, because that role will be passed on to his daughter.
Cameron is currently looking for an 18 year old female to play the lead in the new film and that lead will be the character of John's daughter. The new story will span over three films and bring the series back to its roots with a strong female lead. This first entry will act as a "passing of the baton" while also giving Arnold's T-800 and Linda's Sarah Connor a proper send-off.
The reasoning behind the new lead is the fact that the story will take place in current time and all three main characters (John, Sarah and T-800) have aged up since postponing 'Judgment Day'. Now our main characters are too old to fight the fight that is coming in the not-to-distant-future, so they must prepare the next generation to save humanity.
The idea of John having a daughter is nothing new, it's actually something Cameron touched on before. Cameron's original ending for T2 sees Sarah and John at a park playing with his daughter while Sarah records herself about how judgment day never came. The ending is very definitive so I see why it was scrapped, but you can see it below.
It will be interesting to see how the series will play out now that John is no longer the savior, but at the same time it will be hard to say goodbye to characters that have been a staple in the series from the beginning. ***(It is interesting to note that Sarah had John at 19 and now John will have had a kid when he was 19.)
Terminator 6 (title likely to change) will hit theaters on July 26, 2019.