News broke over the weekend that Emilia Clarke, one of the stars of HBO’s Game of Thrones, would be assuming the role of Sarah Connor in the upcoming reboot of the Terminator films. The role was originated by Linda Hamilton, who played Connor in The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Most recently, Clarke’s Thrones co-star, Lena Headey, played the character on the short-lived TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Clarke had been rumored to be a front-runner for the role for several weeks, up against Brie Larson (21 Jump Street). She is the first official cast member to come onboard the production outside of Arnold Schwarzenegger- who has a deal to reprise his role as the T-800 cyborg sent from the future to protect Connor. Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty) is said to be in final talks to play her son, John. It’s been reported that director Alan Taylor was most concerned with finding his Sarah, so now that Clarke has been announced, this probably means that other official casting bits will be coming from the production soon.

The film, currently rumored to be titled Terminator: Genesis, will launch a trilogy- if successful. It should be noted that the last attempt to reboot the series (Terminator Salvation) was also intended to be the start of a trilogy. That film starred Christian Bale and Sam Worthington, and was directed by McG (Charlie’s Angels), but it failed to relaunch the franchise. Taylor, who is also a Game of Thrones alum, has said in interviews that he hopes this film will be a reboot-within-a-sequel, similar to the way series creator James Cameron shifted gears between the first two films. One was a horror film, the other a sci-fi action epic. It remains to be seen what form this new film will take, but Paramount Pictures is hoping that the Thor: The Dark World director can breathe fresh life into the franchise. Aside from a new trilogy, they also intend to launch a companion TV series to go along with it.

The fifth Terminator film is set to arrive in theaters on July 1, 2015.

SOURCE: Deadline