Timothy Olyphant Lands Major Role in New Terminator Anime

Timothy Olyphant, the man described by Maya Rudolph’s character Gen in The Good Place as “fifty gallons of man in a ten gallon hat”, has been announced to be starring in the upcoming Terminator anime from Netflix, with a pretty big role set for the star.

Netflix’s Next on Netflix Animation event yesterday revealed that Timothy Olyphant would be stepping into the role of the eponymous Terminator in the upcoming anime series Terminator Zero, news that was confirmed on Netflix's Tudum site . As you’d expect from a Terminator, Olyphant’s character will be a cybernetic assassin from the future, sent back to eliminate a scientist named Malcolm Lee, who is developing a competing AI program.

Here’s how Netflix describes the series:

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.

Terminator Zero was announced by Netflix in 2021, although at the time it was untitled, but was revealed officially at Geeked Week last year. The series is being produced by Production IG, best known for its work on Ghost in the Shell, FLCL, and more recently, Kaiju No. 8, alongside Skydance Television and Netflix Animation.

The series will be directed by Masashi Kudo, who worked as a character designer in the popular anime series Bleach, and written by Mattson Tomlin, who helped write The Batman and is co-writing The Batman Part II with Matt Reeves.

Terminator Zero is set to premiere on Netflix on August 29, 2024 — Judgment Day, of course.

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