Get ready to head back into the Matrix.
Warner Brothers has just announced a fourth film in the turn-of-the-twenty-first century franchise, The Matrix. Series stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie Ann-Moss will return as Neo and Trinity, leaders of a rebellion several centuries in the future to free humans from mental captivity in a cyberworld known as The Matrix. Lana Wachowski, who created, co-wrote and co-directed the original trilogy of films with her sister Lily, is returning to direct. She will also be co-writing the screenplay with Aleksandar Hemon and David Mitchell.
The original Matrix was released in 1999. Drawing on a heady combination of cyberpunk science-fiction, wuxia martial arts action, stunning visuals, a dash of existential philosophy and a bit of millennial dread that just happened to be in the cultural zeitgeist, the film was a surprise hit and managed to pull in over $463 million at the worldwide box office. Needless to say, Warner Brothers was very quick to order up two sequels, which were filmed simultaneously and then released six months apart in 2003.
There are no details on the story yet, but it should be interesting to see where Wachowski takes things given that Trinity was definitely killed and Neo apparently also died in a ham-fisted Christ allegory at the end of the third film, The Matrix: Revolutions.
No release date has been set for the film, but variety is reporting that the film is set for an early 2020 production start.
