Also said to have signed up for the new movie is muscle-bound Arnold Schwarzenegger, although whether he will be playing a good terminator or a bad one is anyone's guess.

James Cameron, however, is unlikely to direct the new film, which means that his surprisingly loyal ex-wife Linda Hamilton, is equally unlikely to appear (she has said in the past she'd only do the film if ex-hubbie was in the big man's chair).

Robert Patrick, the advanced shape shifter Terminator has said that if asked - which itself may be unlikely - he might find it difficult to fit in given his new commitment to appear as an FBI agent regular in the X-Files TV series.

We may be in for a little more of a straight SF-fest this time, as rumours have it that the new plot is shot around the machine-human war led by the Skynet AI.

The war is said to be a little more even-sided though, this time, as it is being fought in a later, divergent time-line - due to John Connor's previous efforts - where the humans weren't totally wiped out in a surprise atomic cook-out.

Some of the action may be set on a space station orbiting Earth, or, as some rumours have it, a fledgling Lunar Colony.