A whole new generation will have to decide between red pills and blue pills. Neo and Trinity are headed back to theaters. A fourth “Matrix” installment is on the way with the original’s co-writer and co-director, Lana Wachowski, slated to co-write and direct. The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the news.
“We could not be more excited to be re-entering ‘The Matrix’ with Lana,” Warner Bros. Pictures Group chairman Toby Emmerich said Tuesday in a statement. “Lana is a true visionary — a singular and original creative filmmaker — and we are thrilled that she is writing, directing, and producing this new chapter in ‘The Matrix’ universe.”
Wachowski added, “Many of the ideas Lilly [Wachowski, Lana’s sister] and I explored 20 years ago about our reality are even more relevant now. I’m very happy to have these characters back in my life and grateful for another chance to work with my brilliant friends.” She’s among the feature’s producers, and writing the script alongside Aleksandar Hemon and David Mitchell.
Released in 1999, the original “Matrix” is set in a dystopian future and sees a computer programmer, Neo (Keanu Reeves), discovering that humanity is living in a simulated reality controlled by artificial beings. Carrie-Anne Moss co-stars.
“This is the script that every single person rejected in this town,” Wachowski has said. “Everybody kept trying to change it. And everybody wanted us to blow ‘The Matrix’ up.”
The trailblazing sci-fi went on to gross over $462 million worldwide, with its follow-up, 2003’s “The Matrix Reloaded” taking in more than $742 million. The third installment of the franchise, “The Matrix Revolutions,” was released later that year and raked in $427 million.
Both Reeves and Moss are set to reprise their roles in the fourth “Matrix.”
Besides “The Matrix” trilogy, Wachowski’s credits include “Sense8,” “Jupiter Ascending,” and “Cloud Atlas.”