Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor is locked and loaded in first poster for Terminator: Dark Fate

Fans of the Terminator franchise have been waiting 28 years for Linda Hamilton to team up again with James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And ahead of the release of the first teaser trailer for Terminator: Dark Fate, Paramount Pictures dropped the first poster for the movie on Wednesday via the film’s official Twitter.

In echoes of Schwarzenegger’s famous line ‘I’ll be back’, the poster trumpets ‘Producer James Cameron returns’ along with a solo image of Hamilton as Sarah Connor.  

Locked and loaded: A solo Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor is featured on the first poster for Terminator: Dark Fate. It was released by Paramount Pictures on Wednesday 

Hamilton’s Connor, dressed in military attire, is pictured holding her loaded gun as she walks alone along a dusty highway with the sun behind her.

The implication is she’s ready for a fight – a big one.

It’s the first time Hamilton, 62, has returned to the franchise following the acclaimed Terminator 2: Judgment Day that became the highest-grossing film of 1991.

And Dark Fate is being touted as a direct sequel to that movie with the poster tagline: ‘Welcome to the day after Judgment Day.’ 

Action hero: It’s the first time Hamilton has returned to the franchise following the acclaimed Terminator 2: Judgment Day (pictured) that became the highest-grossing film of 1991

Ready for more: Arnold Schwarzenegger reprises his role as the T-800 in the new movie which serves as a direct sequel to T2

Cameron directed T2 and the original Terminator, released in 1984, but this time he leaves the helming to Tim Miller who directed 2016’s hugely successful Deadpool.

While the upcoming release is the sixth in the franchise, it follows on from the original storyline as if Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines, Terminator Salvation and Terminator Genisys occurred in some parallel universe.

In an interview with Variety in April, Hamilton said she thought long and hard before agreeing to return to the franchise and believes that the new installment succeeds where the other three failed.

‘You start something and you’re invested in the franchise, but somehow the characters that you care about weren’t there,’ she explained. ‘Too many people, too many story points.’

‘So I think we’ve done a good job of narrowing down the focus again so it will echo the first two films.’ 

On Tuesday, Schwarzenegger, 71, tweeted the announcement that the first trailer for Terminator: Dark Fate would be released at 6 a.m. PST on Thursday.

‘Since I’m from the future I can officially report that the @Terminator trailer is 48 hours away,’ he wrote alongside a 10-second clip driving home the release date and time.

Anticipation: On Tuesday, Schwarzenegger, 71, tweeted the announcement that the first teaser for Terminator: Dark Fate would be released at 6 a.m. PST on Thursday

Countdown: ‘Since I’m from the future I can officially report that the @Terminator trailer is 48 hours away,’ he wrote alongside a 10-second clip driving home the release date and time

Back in April, Miller showed a couple of clips from the film to an excited audience at ComicCon but there was still plenty of work to do on the visual effects needed to fully bring the concept to life on the big screen.

While Hamilton and Schwarzenegger reprise their original roles, Dark Fate introduces new characters played by Mackenzie Davis and Natalia Reyes while Gabriel Luna plays a new Terminator with the ability to split in two.  

Terminator: Dark Fate is set to open in theatres in North America on November 1. 

New characters: Schwarzenegger and Hamilton were joined by franchise newcomers Gabriel Luna, Natalia Reyes and Mackenzie Davis at the Paramount CinemaCon panel in April