Matrix Resurrections: New Morpheus Was Always Planned Says Co ...

A new Morpheus was always a part of the plan for The Matrix Resurrections, the film’s co-writer Aleksandar Hemon told Gizmodo. The character is played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in the fourth Matrix film, which Hemon wrote with David Mitchell and director Lana Wachowski. Morpheus was originally played by Laurence Fishburne in the original trilogy, which comprised The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.

While Fishburne has said in the past that he simply wasn't invited, we don't know what other alternatives were considered for the film. Hemon did also say that they originally wrote another character for an actor that then couldn't appear on the film, as many things change in the moviemaking process:

“A new Morpheus was there from the beginning. We knew that Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss would be involved. Without them, this thing would not have been possible. But the other thing, during my brief career in the movies, I’ve learned that moviemaking, it’s a world of contingency. And so people might or might not, you know, sign on—or if they sign on, some things may change. So we did write some roles, I’m not going to give it away, but we wrote a character for someone we thought would play [it] and then it was not possible. And so still, we didn’t change anything radically, but we were just imagining this actor in the role. And then it turned out that it was not possible, but we didn’t change any lines with that. So that actor is still inscribed in the role.”

Image via WB

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Hemon admitted, however, that there were “preliminary talks” with Hugo Weaving to reprise his role as Agent Smith from the original films, but when the discussions failed to arrive at a resolution, Jonathan Groff was cast instead.

Directed by Wachowski, The Matrix Resurrections stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss as Neo and Trinity, respectively. The supporting cast includes Jessica Henwick, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Neil Patrick Harris, and others. It’s the final film in Warner Bros’ controversial 2021 release strategy, which saw the studio debut each of its films day-and-date on the HBO Max streaming service. The move was criticized by several filmmakers and is believed to have impacted the commercial fortunes of the films in question.

The Matrix Resurrections continued the difficult-to-ignore trend of WB films underperforming at the box office this year; Resurrections opened to $22.5 million over an extended five-day period in the U.S. and is budgeted at a reported $190 million.

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Producer James McTeigue recently told Collider that there are currently no plans for any follow-ups. “We've got no prequel in mind. We've got no sequel in mind. We've got no further trilogy,” he said definitively. The Matrix Resurrections is playing in theaters and is available to stream on HBO Max.