The Matrix (franchise)

• 1. Introduction

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  The Matrix franchise began in 1999 with a film that cost $63 million to make and earned over $460 million worldwide. That success grew into four feature films, plus animation, video games and comics set in the same universe. Joel Silver produced, and the Wachowskis stood behind the camera. The central idea is simple to state and hard to shake: the world around you may be a simulation built by machines that farm human beings. Where did that idea come from? Who else claimed to have invented it first? And what happens to a franchise when its own creators say they want to walk away? The answers begin inside the simulation itself.

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• 2. The Simulated World

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  Early in the 21st century, according to the story, humanity creates artificial intelligence and soon loses control of it. The machines become self-aware and rebel. People respond by covering the sky in thick, stormy clouds, hoping to cut off the solar power the machines depend on. The war ends in a machine victory.

  Deprived of their usual energy source, the machines find another. They seal captured humans in pods and harvest the bioelectric and thermal energy of their bodies. Cybernetic implants then connect each mind to a shared illusion called the Matrix.

  The illusion copies human civilization around the turn of the 21st century, a period the story treats as the high point of human achievement. Each person inside appears as a "residual self-image," a mental projection of a digital self. The result is practically indistinguishable from reality, so most connected people never suspect the truth. Viewers get one clue, because scenes inside the Matrix carry a green tint.

  A few characters learn to exploit the system. Once they understand that the world is a program, they can bend its virtual physical laws and gain superhuman abilities. Their adventures move between the simulation, set in a vast Western megacity, and the real world outside it. Anyone who breaks free is treated as a threat and pursued by the machines, both inside the simulation and beyond it.

  The pursuers include Agent Smith, a guardian of the system played by Hugo Weaving in the original films. In later projects the role passed to Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Jonathan Groff.

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• 3. Philosophy and Readings

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  Plato's allegory of the cave sits close to the surface of the films' premise. So do René Descartes's evil demon and the brain in a vat thought experiment. The story also echoes Kant's distinction between appearance and the thing in itself, and Zhuangzi's dream of being a butterfly. Marxist social theory appears on the list of resemblances, alongside references to Buddhism, Vedanta, Christianity, Judaism, Gnosticism, existentialism and nihilism.

  Jean Baudrillard's 1981 treatise Simulacra and Simulation is referenced many times in the first film. Baudrillard himself thought the film misrepresented his work. Lana Wachowski answered that the point of the reference had been misunderstood.

  Lewis Carroll supplies a different thread. The first film refers repeatedly to a white rabbit, a rabbit hole and mirrors. Those images point back to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, from 1865, and Through the Looking-Glass, from 1871.

  Science fiction offered precedents too. The author William Gibson, whose 1984 book Neuromancer defined cyberpunk for many readers, called the film "arguably the ultimate 'cyberpunk' artifact." The television series Doctor Who had its own Matrix as early as the 1976 serial The Deadly Assassin. It was a vast computer entered through a device connected to the head. Users could see the real world and change its physics, but death inside meant death in reality.

  The ideas also spread outside cinema. Matrixism is a new religious movement inspired by the trilogy. The sociologist of religion Adam Possamai calls such groups hyper-real religions, because they mix spirituality with popular culture. Whether its followers are serious remains debated, yet the media paid attention anyway.

  The pill analogy has also been read in a more personal way. After the Wachowskis came out as transgender women, some analysts interpreted taking the red pill as exploring gender identity, beginning a transition and leaving the closet. In 2016, Lilly Wachowski acknowledged that reading as "a cool thing because it's an excellent reminder that art is never static."

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• 4. Anime and Rivals

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  When the Wachowskis first explained their plan to Joel Silver, they showed him an anime and said, "We wanna do that for real." The film was Mamoru Oshii's 1995 Ghost in the Shell. Mitsuhisa Ishikawa of Production I.G, the studio that made it, said its high-quality visuals strongly inspired the pair. He added that cyberpunk is hard to describe to a third person. In his view, a written proposal for The Matrix would have been very difficult to take to studios.

  Ishikawa also saw a commercial angle. Since Ghost in the Shell had already gained recognition in America, he said, the Wachowskis used it as a promotional tool.

  Not every resemblance was deliberate. Viewers have noticed similarities to the 1985 anime film Megazone 23. The Wachowskis said they had never seen it.

  Reviewers also compared the film to other late-1990s works, including Strange Days, Dark City and The Truman Show. The Wachowskis said Dark City had no influence on them. They did find it very strange that Australia came to be associated with three films about the nature of reality.

  The sharpest creative complaint came from the comics world. Grant Morrison, who wrote the series The Invisibles, believes the Wachowskis essentially plagiarized his work. The Wachowskis replied that they enjoy the comic but did not draw inspiration from it.

  Morrison's complaint stayed a dispute between creators. Other accusations of copying ended up in a courtroom.

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• 5. Courtroom Claims

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  In April 2003, Sophia Stewart filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. She alleged that The Matrix, along with the 1984 film The Terminator, had been plagiarized from her film treatment titled "The Third Eye." The court allowed the lawsuit to move forward in 2005. Judge Margaret Morrow later dismissed it in a 53-page ruling. She found that Stewart's side had offered no evidence for its key claims and no striking similarity between the works.

  Stewart's own lawyers became the next defendants. In August 2014, she successfully sued them, and the ruling found they had failed her in several ways. They missed discovery deadlines, did not depose key witnesses and did not respond in time to the defendants' motion for summary judgment. Stewart twice failed to appear for her deposition in the original case. Both times she was unaware of it, because her attorneys never told her. She was awarded damages totaling $316,280.62.

  Despite that outcome, the case became an "Internet legend." Many sources claimed that Stewart had actually won her suit against the filmmakers, which the record does not support.

  In 2013, Thomas Althouse filed a separate suit in California federal court. He alleged that ideas for The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions came from his screenplay The Immortals. Judge R. Gary Klausner granted summary judgment to the defendants. He wrote that the premises of the two works were "so different that it would be unreasonable to find their plots substantially similar."

  The two sequels at the center of that suit had been made together, in a single long shoot.

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• 6. Sequels and Verdicts

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  Reloaded and Revolutions were filmed simultaneously during one shoot under the project codename "The Burly Man." They were released in two parts in 2003, each with a budget of $150 million. The story turns to an impending machine attack on Zion, the human enclave, while Neo learns more about the history of the Matrix and his role as The One. The sequels also carried more ambitious action scenes and visual effects.

  Reloaded earned almost $742 million worldwide and became the highest-grossing R-rated film in history. It held that record for 13 years, until Deadpool passed it in 2016.

  Revolutions made history differently. It had the world's first simultaneous release across major cities, and for the first time that included a release in China and one in IMAX theaters. Its five-day opening of $204 million broke the previous record. The film still finished at $427 million, a little below the original.

  Critics were less generous. On Rotten Tomatoes, Revolutions scored 34 percent from 219 reviews, and Metacritic gave it 47. One common complaint was that it never answered the questions raised in Reloaded. Reloaded itself reached 74 percent, and the original film reached 83 percent from 207 reviews.

  The best score in the whole franchise went to neither. The Animatrix, released alongside Reloaded, earned 89 percent from 18 reviews.

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• 7. Beyond the Films

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  The Animatrix was produced in 2003 to coincide with Reloaded, partly to acknowledge the strong influence of Japanese anime. It is a collection of nine animated shorts. The Wachowskis conceived the project and oversaw it, and they wrote four of the segments themselves while handing them to other directors to execute. Many segments were produced by notable figures from Japanese animation. Four shorts first appeared on the official website, one screened in cinemas with Dreamcatcher, and one aired on MTV channels and Syfy.

  The short The Second Renaissance and the comic "Bits and Pieces of Information" act as prequels. Both explain how the setting came to be.

  On the 15th of May 2003, the game Enter the Matrix reached North America on the same day as Reloaded. Its story ran parallel to that film and linked it to the Animatrix short "Final Flight of the Osiris." It also used scenes shot during the filming of Reloaded and Revolutions. Two more games followed in 2005. The online game The Matrix Online continued the story beyond Revolutions, and The Matrix: Path of Neo let players control Neo through scenes from the trilogy. The online game was shut down in 2009. On the 9th of December 2021, an interactive technology demonstration called The Matrix Awakens was released.

  Between 1999 and 2003, the official website also offered The Matrix Comics for free. One comic was written by the Wachowskis and illustrated by the films' concept artist, Geof Darrow. Another was printed in 1999 as a giveaway for theaters, but Warner Bros. recalled it because of its mature content. Burlyman Entertainment, the Wachowskis' company, later republished most of the comics in two paperback volumes in 2003 and 2004. A twentieth-anniversary hardcover followed in 2019.

  The website also gave away a screensaver for Windows and Mac OS X that simulated the falling digital rain from the films. It was reported to have a password security problem. Many unofficial versions soon appeared.

  Home video had its own milestones. By August 2000, the DVD of The Matrix had sold over three million copies in the United States, making it the best-selling DVD of all time. In 2004, Warner Home Video released The Ultimate Matrix Collection, a 10-disc set. At the Wachowskis' request, each of the three films came with two audio commentaries. One was by philosophers who liked the films, and the other was by critics who did not. The aim was to let viewers form their own opinion. The set held 35 hours of bonus material.

  HD DVD and Blu-ray versions followed in 2007 and 2008. A nine-disc Ultra HD release arrived in 2018, remastered in 4K from the original camera negative under cinematographer Bill Pope. Its color grade reportedly came closer to the theatrical presentation than any earlier home release.

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• 8. Return and Future

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  While making the original trilogy, the Wachowskis told close collaborators that they had no intention of making another Matrix film after Revolutions. In February 2015, while promoting Jupiter Ascending, Lilly Wachowski called a return "a particularly repelling idea in these times." She pointed to studios' habit of greenlighting sequels, reboots and adaptations over original material. Lana Wachowski, addressing reboot rumors, said she believed the studio might be looking to replace them. Keanu Reeves and Hugo Weaving each said they would return, provided the Wachowskis were involved in the creative and production process.

  In March 2017, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Warner Bros. was in the early stages of re-launching the franchise. A television series was considered and dismissed. The studio instead negotiated with Zak Penn to write a treatment for a new film, with Michael B. Jordan eyed for the lead. The Wachowskis were not involved at that point. Penn refuted the reports of a reboot, remake or continuation, saying he was working on stories within the established continuity.

  The options under consideration included a prequel about a young Morpheus. Another was an alternate storyline centered on one of his descendants. By April 2018, Penn described the script as being at a nascent stage. In September 2019, Jordan said he was "flattered" by the rumors without making a definitive statement. A month later, Penn confirmed his script was set earlier than the first three films.

  Then, in August 2019, came the announcement that Lana Wachowski would direct a fourth film. The Matrix Resurrections opened on the 22nd of December 2021. Lana Wachowski wrote it with David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon, and Reeves and Moss reprised their roles. The film had a budget of $190 million and earned about $157 million worldwide. Rotten Tomatoes gave it 63 percent from 363 reviews.

  Afterward, producer James McTeigue said there were no plans for more films. He believed the open ending meant that could change. In April 2024, Warner Bros. announced a new installment, after Drew Goddard made a successful pitch to studio executives. It will be the first Matrix film not directed by either Wachowski sister, though Lana will serve as an executive producer.

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