The Matrix Resurrections

About the film

The Matrix Resurrections is a 2021 American science fiction action film co-produced and directed by Lana Wachowski, who co-wrote the screenplay with David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon. It is the sequel to The Matrix Revolutions (2003) and the fourth installment in The Matrix film series. The film stars an ensemble cast including Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jessica Henwick, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Lambert Wilson, Christina Ricci, Freema Agyeman, and Jada Pinkett Smith. Set sixty years after Revolutions, the film follows Neo, who lives a seemingly ordinary life as a video game developer having trouble with distinguishing fantasy from reality. A group of rebels, with the help of a programmed version of Morpheus, free Neo from a new version of the Matrix and fight a new enemy that holds Trinity captive.

Following the release of Revolutions, the Wachowskis denied the possibility of another Matrix film. Warner Bros. constantly expressed interest in reviving the franchise, hiring Zak Penn to write a new screenplay after the Wachowskis refused every offer to create more sequels. In late 2019, a fourth Matrix film was finally announced, with Lana Wachowski returning as director without Lilly, and Reeves and Moss reprising their roles. Filming started in February 2020, but was halted the next month by the COVID-19 pandemic. Wachowski considered abandoning the film, but was encouraged by the cast to finish it. Filming resumed in August and concluded three months later.

Plot

A young woman named Bugs learns that the Matrix is running old code in a loop, enacting the moment when Trinity first found Neo within the Matrix. Bugs discovers a program embodying Morpheus and helps free him from the simulation.

Thomas Anderson is the creator of a video game series called The Matrix, based on his faint memories as Neo. At a coffee shop, he regularly encounters Tiffany, a married mother with no recollection of her past, on whom Anderson based the game character Trinity. Anderson has created a simulation called a Modal to develop game characters. He struggles to separate perceived reality from dreams, a known concern among his co-workers and partner. Thomas's psychoanalyst prescribes him blue pills that he takes each day to suppress the occurrences, but he stops taking them. Meanwhile, as Bugs and Morpheus work to extract Neo from the Matrix, Anderson's business partner regains his memories as Agent Smith, Neo's former nemesis.

Neo awakens in a pod and notices Trinity confined in another nearby, before being extracted to Bugs's hovercraft Mnemosyne. Neo is brought to the human city Io, the sister city of Zion, where he reunites with an elderly Niobe. She explains that sixty years have passed in the real world since the Machine War ended, and that Neo's allies, including the original Morpheus, have all died over time. The peace achieved by Neo's sacrifice lasted for many years, but the large number of humans leaving the Matrix created a serious power shortage, causing the machines to fight over limited resources. Soon afterward, Zion was targeted in an attempt to get humans to use as the power supply once more. However, this attempt caused many machines, who still remembered Neo's sacrifice and the promise of peace, to turn on the others in order to protect the humans. This allowed most of Zion's citizens to escape. Io was then founded by both machines and humans who have been working together ever since against the remaining machines who want to return things to the way they were before the war.

Production

While making The Matrix films, the Wachowskis told their close collaborators that they, at the time, had no intention of making another film in the series after The Matrix Revolutions (2003). Instead, they gave their blessing to the notion of gamers "inherit[ing] the storyline" and The Matrix Online (2005) video game was billed as the official continuation. Rumors of a new installment began to circulate online in 2011 when it was reported that the Wachowskis had been planning two additional films in the series and had discussions with Keanu Reeves about reprising his role. Another rumor in 2014 claimed that the sisters had submitted a story treatment for a new Matrix trilogy to Warner Bros. These were later confirmed to be false.

In February 2015, in interviews promoting Jupiter Ascending (2015), Lilly Wachowski called a return to The Matrix (1999) a "particularly repelling idea in these times" when studios preferred to green-light sequels, reboots, and adaptations over original material, while Lana Wachowski, addressing rumors about a potential reboot, said they had not heard anything but believed the studio might be looking to replace them. At various times, Reeves and Hugo Weaving each confirmed their interest and willingness to reprise their roles in potential future installments of the Matrix films, with the stipulation that the Wachowskis were involved in the creative and production process.

According to producer James McTeigue, there was "always talk" of a fourth Matrix film within Warner Bros. even without the Wachowskis on board, though prior to 2019 they had not found the right concept. In March 2017, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Warner Bros. was in the early stages of developing a relaunch of the franchise, with Zak Penn in talks to write a treatment and interest in getting Michael B. Jordan attached to star. The Wachowskis were not involved at that stage, although the studio had hoped for their blessing. The notion of a reboot or remake was denounced by Penn, and ideas for stories set in the already established universe were explored, including, reportedly, a prequel film about a young Morpheus or a sequel film from a descendant of his. In March 2018, Penn said he was working on a revival of the franchise and teased the possibility of an expanded universe. Penn clarified in October 2019 that he had been working on one of two Matrix projects at Warner Bros., and that his work was separate from the planned film. Penn's film did not go ahead in favor of Wachowski's film; Jada Pinkett Smith later reflected that handing the franchise's legacy to other filmmakers would have been a "horrendous mistake".

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