Why the “The Matrix” never can have to have had a series of sequels

Of the highest five absolute top-grossing rated R motion photos of all time, few have made a greater cultural impact than The Matrix franchise. 

From its entry into the area’s political and cultural discourse by the concept of “crimson pill” awakenings to its role as an allegorical touchstone for what to depend on within the impending digital realities of the metaverse, The Matrix has extended a long way beyond its cinematic origins. 

Nonetheless set apart a question to a movie fan what they deem of the Matrix motion photos and, most regularly, they are rapid to repeat you, moderately of aloofly, that they handiest devour the predominant movie, no longer the sequels. Nonetheless, the numbers don’t toughen these claims. The Matrix Reloaded, the 2d movie within the series, is mainly the most successful of all of them, grossing $741 million at theaters around the area. 

After that free up, things went downhill mercurial, with The Matrix Revolutions, the third movie, grossing ultimate moderately of greater than half as mighty because the predominant sequel at $427 million. The pattern persevered in 2021 with The Matrix Resurrections, which pulled in ultimate $37 million within the US, and handiest $156 million worldwide.

There was never imagined to be a fourth Matrix movie  

The seductive pull of no doubt extensive sequel revenue has in most cases pushed Hollywood to squeeze every last drop of value sales from an otherwise exhausted storyline. In the case of The Matrix, the final public’s response to the predominant movie’s thoughts-bending plot and modern “bullet time” special outcomes had been so successful that Warner Bros. Pictures moved to substantiate two sequels ultimate months after the free up of the predominant movie in 1999. 

And when it comes to science fiction, the lure is particularly solid. The head 10 most successful live-motion sequels of all time all tumble into that genre, with Superstar Wars Ep. VII: The Power Awakens main the manner at $2 billion. If a science fiction free up succeeds with moviegoers, a sequel is sort of always on the table.

Even supposing the directors, the Wachowski sisters, the studio, and the predominant movie’s lead producer, Joel Silver, had been all eagerly engaged in launching the predominant two sequels, it appears that it was never imagined to movement any further than the trilogy. “That can no longer ever happen,” said Silver when requested about the chance of additional sequels following the free up of Revolutions in 2003. 

The truth is, prior to the free up of Reloaded, the studio launched a teaser for The Animatrix, a series of titillating rapid motion photos designed to fabricate out the backstory of The Matrix universe and acknowledge any lingering questions no longer answered by the trilogy. That titillating collection was launched voice-to-DVD in 2003 for dwelling video. Since then, basically the most handy completely different non-live motion Matrix area cloth came within the develop of basically the most up-to-date The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Ride, made to promote the Resurrections sequel.

Discontinuance to twenty years later, the wisdom of Silver’s normal pledge has been borne out thru the fourth movie within the series, which largely repeats what took plot within the predominant Matrix. 

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The cultural impact of The Matrix  

Kaori Sakamoto, Japan’s 2022 Olympic bronze medalist in resolve skating, was ultimate three years aged when the orchestral be aware “Chateau” by Possess Dougan, the song within the lend a hand of her most famend routine, debuted in Reloaded. Nonetheless despite her temporal disconnect, the transcendent Matrix battle scene continues to encourage her and heaps others uncovered to the Wachowskis’ universe. 

And when tech luminaries devour Elon Musk inject the now viral belief that we can also very successfully be living in a simulation into the social media condo, the shadow of The Matrix looms greater over the conversation than the broadly cited philosophical essay on the area by Prick Bostrom. Sooner than Bostrom, figures devour roboticist Hans Moravec and thinker René Descartes explored the belief, however the Wachowskis’ movie has change into basically the most broadly consumed model of the concept.  

At this level, it’s complicated to disclaim that The Matrix has influenced movie, fashion, and the manner we deem about actuality itself over a entire lot of generations. Nonetheless, the reductive solutions that echo in Resurrections, and the final public’s tepid response to it, original that infrequently sequels can diminish an normal movie’s brilliance in a technique that taints it eternally. 

The associated price of sequels to the legacy of the original work

Motion photos devour Citizen Kane, A Clockwork Orange, and Inception proceed to fascinate cinephiles this day. Phase of the ongoing enchantment with these reports is the indisputable truth that they, successfully, ended. A total belief was rendered, leaving the viewer to ponder the which way of it all, for a few years into the long run. 

Aloof, sequels can bring cinema gold. The Merovingian’s programmable-sex-dessert scene, accented by a flourish of French profanity in Reloaded was stress-free. The “Rotund Brawl,” during which Neo fights dozens of Agent Smiths was a thoughts-bending show veil innovation. And the motorway automobile dash whereby Morpheus makes use of a samurai sword to assassinate a transferring automobile was a excessive level within the historical previous of Hollywood motion sequences. 

Many diehard Matrix followers made peace with the decidedly less enticing Revolutions because Reloaded had proper moments of cinematic brilliance. Nonetheless the advent of Resurrections a few years later has recast the Matrix sequels, as a total, as a cynical folly, extra exasperated about revenue than the legacy of the memoir.

The commercial case for the sequels has, largely, paid off. Aloof, what continues to resonate with the final public is largely chanced on within the predominant movie. Sadly, the vibrant pulse of the original appears to be fading into the background noise generated by every successive sequel within the series.  

Much less is extra is the antithesis of sequels, and the linchpin of a conventional

“Wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, historical previous, or science, it is a long way killed,” wrote Joseph Campbell in his 1949 book The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Campbell’s evaluation is a potent breadcrumb pointing toward why The Matrix would likely be a long way extra revered as a seminal work it is a long way that if had it ended with the predominant movie. 

On the ruin of The Matrix, Neo warns the AI scheme of his contemporary powers, telling it, “The set apart we gallop from there, is a replacement I leave to you…” ultimate sooner than demonstrating a recent trick—flying across the dense digital actuality cityscape on his contain energy. 

That occasion of unlimited possibility and sweetness, can also very successfully be the last in reality nice moment within the franchise’s historical previous. Like many important movie moments that happen ultimate off digicam, the viewer’s imagination is mainly the most extremely effective instrument a filmmaker has at their disposal. 

With that ending, the Wachowskis kicked off a multi-decade obsession with the area of The Matrix because the viewers tried to enjoy within the gaps of what can also happen subsequent within the kind of world offered by the movie.

There is a ravishing line between an idea that is so correct it have to be elaborated upon, and an idea that is so perfectly done, asserting the relaxation weakens its total gravitational pull. The makers of The Matrix sequels crossed that line. And now it’s decided that they favor to have taken the blue pill, and let the predominant movie stand on its contain, eternally.