Lena Headey is the new Sarah Connor

More and more, it looks like the TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles is going to become a reality. Variety reports that Lena Headey has been cast in the lead role, which Linda Hamilton played in the first two Terminator movies (1984-1991); and the trade paper says the series will focus “on Sarah and her son John, as they fight attackers from the future in present-day Los Angeles.”

I can only assume this means the producers will be ignoring the third film altogether, since the third film seemed to indicate that there had been no visits from the future, good or bad, since the second film; and I suppose it is possible that this series will revamp the continuity of the first two films, just as the third film did, if they really do plan to set it in the “present day” (and not in the mid-1990s, which is when the second film takes place).

One other thing, for whatever it’s worth: In the first film, Hamilton was 27 and her character was apparently 18 or 19; and in the second film, Hamilton was 34 and her character was 29. Headey just turned 33, so she would seem to be the right age for the part — but will John Connor once again be a prepubescent boy? (In the second film, the actor was 13 and the character was 10.)

Completely irrelevant side note: Headey’s first film, Clothes in the Wardrobe (1992), AKA The Summer House, was one of the very first films I reviewed for the student newspaper; it was also one of the very first daytime screenings that I ever attended. So whenever I see her name — or whenever I see Headey herself, in films like Mrs. Dalloway (1997), Possession (2002; my review) and Imagine Me & You (2005) — I get a twinge of nostalgia.

UPDATE: ComingSoon.net says John Connor will be 15 years old in this series. If that’s true, and if the producers stick to the continuity of the first two films, then the series would take place five years after the second film, in 2000 — and Sarah Connor herself would be 34. Or, if they follow the revised continuity of the third film, then the series would take place two years after the second film, in 1993. But does anyone expect them to stick to either of those continuities? Didn’t think so. And let’s not even ask how the proposed Terminator 4 would tie into any of this.