When it was announced that Warner Bros. was going to team up with Lana Wachowski to make a new ‘Matrix’ film, fans were excited. But in that excitement, there was also the question of why? Why now would the filmmaker come back to the franchise to make a new film after nearly 20 years? Well, judging by her recent comments at Berlin’s International Literature Festival (via ScreenRant), it was a very personal, emotional decision.
For many, the idea of Lana Wachowski doing another ‘Matrix’ film can be seen as a cash-grab from the filmmaker, taking advantage of Hollywood’s desire to bring back franchises that have been sitting on the shelf for a while. However, the filmmaker explained that she was offered truckloads of money each year from WB to make a new ‘Matrix,’ and each year, she turned the studio down. But after some heartbreaking circumstances, Neo and Trinity were reborn in her mind.
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“It was never interesting to me, as an idea, to continue [‘The Matrix’ franchise],” she explained. “But then something really hard happened, which is both of my parents got ill…It was just this constant grief. My dad died, a friend died, and then my mom died.”
She continued:
“I didn’t really know how to process that kind of grief. I hadn’t experienced it that closely…You know that their lives are going to end and yet it was still really hard. And then my brain has always reached into my imagination, and one night, I was crying and I couldn’t sleep, and suddenly, my brain exploded this whole story. I couldn’t have my mom and dad, yet suddenly I had Neo and Trinity, arguably the two most important characters in my life. It was immediately comforting to have these two characters alive again, and it’s super simple. You can look at it and say, ‘Ok, these two people die and ok, bring these two people back to life, and oh, doesn’t that feel good?’ Yeah, it did! It’s simple, and this is what art does and that’s what stories do, they comfort us. And they’re important.”
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As you might expect, Lana then approached Lilly Wachowski to see if she wanted to team up again to tackle “The Matrix” sequel, but Lilly “wanted to process her grief differently.” So, as we now know, Lana Wachowski would go off and begin work on the sequel, which would eventually be “The Matrix: Resurrections,” a fairly fitting title given the background, don’t you think?
“The Matrix: Resurrections” is expected to arrive in theaters and on HBO Max on December 22.
You can watch Lana Wachowski explain coming back for a new ‘Matrix’ film below: