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The influential cyberpunk trilogy conjured a terrifying future where humans were enslaved to technology. How might a new film’s creative revamp top that?
It was surely inevitable that Hollywood would eventually return to the world of The Matrix. After all, the Wachowskis’ turn-of-the-century cyberpunk trilogy makes clear that the titular virtual-reality universe is regularly rebooted when it all gets a little too crazy in cyberspace. There’s even provision for Keanu Reeves’s Neo to be brought back with a new face, Doctor Who style, as 2003’s Matrix Reloaded revealed the existence of umpteen previous digital messiahs, all going by the same name, before the latest iteration arrived on the scene to bullet-time the machines into submission.
Rumours have been swirling around a new film since at least 2017, when Ready Player One’s Zach Penn was reported to be writing an episode for studio Warner Bros that would cast Michael B Jordan as the lead. Now, as the original 1999 film returns to US cinemas, writer-director Lilly Wachowski, who oversaw the original trilogy alongside her sister Lana, has given the concept her blessing (while suggesting she is too busy to get involved herself). Continue reading...