Arnold Schwarzenegger will not appear in the next Terminator movie, James Cameron has said.

The 78-year-old actor has starred as T-800 in Cameron's sci-fi saga since the original 1984 film, but the director has now confirmed Schwarzenegger will not feature in the next installment as "it's time for a new generation of characters" to take the helm of the franchise.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, the 71-year-old filmmaker said of Schwarzenegger: "I can safely say he won't be [in it].

"It's time for a new generation of characters. I insisted Arnold had to be involved in Terminator: Dark Fate, and it was a great finish to him playing the T-800.

"There needs to be a broader interpretation of Terminator and the idea of a time war and super intelligence. I want to do new stuff that people aren't imagining."

While the next Terminator film will not feature Schwarzenegger's titular action hero, it won't be the first time the Predator star has been missing from the franchise, as he had also skipped 2009's Terminator: Salvation when he served as Governor of California.

When asked whether he had cracked the premise of the next Terminator movie, Cameron teased he was "working on it".

The Titanic director also confirmed he was looking to return to the Terminator series after he is finished with Avatar.

He said: "Once the dust clears on Avatar in a couple of months, I'm going to really plunge into that.

"There are a lot of narrative problems to solve. The biggest is how do I stay enough ahead of what's really happening to make it science fiction?"

The most recent entry in the Avatar series, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is set to debut on December 19, 2025.

The blockbuster follows Na'vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and their family as they face a fierce new threat from the fire‑wielding 'Ash People' tribe led by Varang (Oona Chaplin), reigniting conflict on a turbulent Pandora.

As grief and old enemies resurface, alliances with the Metkayina clan will test their strength, faith, and survival.

Avatar: Fire and Ash also stars Sigourney Weaver as Kiri, Stephen Lang as Miles Quaritch and Kate Winslet as Ronal.

Cameron recently said he thinks of Avatar: Fire and Ash as a "culmination of a saga" instead of a straightforward sequel to 2022's The Way of Water.

He told io9: "I don't think of Fire and Ash as a sequel. I think it was a culmination of a saga.

"I like 'saga' better than 'sequel' because a lot of where we were going with the story was in the original architecture of the story. So if you think of this as the third act, I think that's healthier.

"As opposed to a typical Hollywood sequel, where they make a bunch of money with a movie and then they're like, 'Oh, c***. We've got to scramble around and get a new script. Maybe it's not so good, but let's just shoot it and get it out there.' That's not what we're doing here at all.

"It's a long game. And I went into it knowing that we'd be playing a long game and betting that the audience would come along with us and care about these people.

"Because they may be 10 feet tall and blue, but they're people."