William Wisher Jr. has died at 71.
He co-wrote The Terminator and its sequel, Judgement Day.
James Cameron once called him one of his best friends.
William Wisher Jr., the screenwriter who helped bring Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic T-800 to the big screen in The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, has passed away at the age of 71. His friend and journalist, David Poland, broke the news. The Wisher family confirmed news of the filmmaker’s death, saying he “passed away peacefully at home.”
“William believed that stories have the power to connect people across generations,” the family said in a statement shared with Deadline. “While the world celebrates the unforgettable films he helped create, we will remember him for his kindness, his humor, his brilliant imagination, and the love he gave so freely to his family and friends. We are grateful for the outpouring of love and support during this difficult time.”
Wisher’s first credit propped up on The Terminator, where he received an “additional dialogue” credit before being elevated to full co-writer alongside James Cameron on Terminator 2: Judgment Day. He also made memorable cameos in both films, playing a police officer in the original and the man who photographs the T-800 after the crash in the sequel.
William Wisher Jr.'s Notable Projects
In 1995, he was also one of the core writers on the Judge Dredd film – co-writing the story with current Warners boss Michael De Luca and then co-writing the screenplay with Street Fighter writer/director Steven E. de Souza. He was an uncredited script doctor on both John McTiernan’s Die Hard with a Vengeance in 1995 and Len Wiseman’s Live Free or Die Hard in 2007, scoring an executive producer credit for the latter.
He reunited with with McTiernan for The 13th Warrior, co-writing the 1999 film adaptation of Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead novel. He and author Caleb Carr co-wrote Paul Schrader’s Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist before that project was retrofitted into Renny Harlin’s Exorcist: The Beginning. There has been a slew of other uncredited script doctoring he did, which included films like Broken Arrow, Eraser, Mercury Rising, Judgment Night, A Nightmare on Elm Street 5. His final credited screenplay was the Pierce Brosnan thriller I.T.
