This Friday, November 17, TMC is broadcasting “Matrix Resurrections,” the fourth opus of the Wachowskis’ science fiction saga. But is this the end, or is a fifth film planned?
After floating around for several years, the rumor came to fruition during the summer of 2019: Lana Wachowski is preparing to resurrect The Matrix. Without his sister Lilly, but with Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss, whose characters Neo and Trinity had died in the third (and, then, last) film of the saga launched in 1999.
Entitled Matrix Resurrections, the feature film suffered the consequences of the pandemic which hit the world in 2020: its filming was interrupted, which postponed its release, initially planned for May 2021. This finally took place a few months later, in December . In theaters and on HBO Max in the United States, like all Warner films (except Dune) of that year.
Which inevitably has an impact on its box office and, with 157.3 million dollars in revenue (for a production budget of 190), it signs the lowest score in the franchise. And the director divides the audience again, by trying to surprise them and offer them something other than what they expected from a Matrix.
Summoning several actors and actresses from her Sense8 series, as well as Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Watchmen), Jonathan Groff (Mindhunter) or Neil Patrick Harris around Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss, Lana Wachowski signs a more organic film and seeks to reclaim the saga by remembering that it is above all a love story, and not just about guns and fights.
Warner Bros. Pictures
A particularly striking speech in this funny sequence where the filmmaker openly mocks her producers, and implies that she was forced to get back behind the camera, under penalty of another person directing the feature film in her place. But not all spectators were receptive.
With an average of 2.6 out of 5, it is the lowest rated opus of the saga on AlloCiné… while the press places it above the first Matrix, with 3.5 against 3, 4. Faced with the phenomenal success of Spider-Man: No Way Home, released a week earlier, Resurrections was not the expected success on any level. And this is perhaps why there has never been any talk of a sequel, while Lana Wachowski affirmed that it was not the start of a new trilogy.
Which does not prevent us from (re)giving Matrix Resurrections a chance, broadcast this Friday, November 17 on TMC. Without a doubt the most moving of the four feature films in the Wachowski saga.