Laurence Fishburne didn’t return to his role as Morpheus in 2021’s The Matrix Resurrections by virtue of being, well, dead. A different iteration of his character, who was artificially created, was played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. A different iteration of Agent Smith (originally played by Hugo Weaving) was played by Jonathan Groff.
Fishburne was recently asked by Variety what he thought of the legacy sequel, which came out almost two decades after the original Matrix Trilogy was released. It was directed by Lana Wachowski without her former co-director Lily Wachowski. Fishburne was surprisingly candid with his answer, saying; “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. And it wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be,” Fishburne told Marc Malkin. “But I thought Carrie-Anne [Moss] and Keanu [Reeves] really did their thing. Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
Although Fishburne didn’t appear with Reeves in the fourth Matrix movie, the two will co-star in John Wick: Chapter 4. Fishburne first appeared in John Wick: Chapter 2 playing the Bowery King – leader of a band of New Yorker assassins and a somewhat reluctant ally to Reeves’ hitman.
The Matrix Resurrections made almost $160 million, while going day-and-date on HBO Max. This can be compared to other Warner Bros movies which used the same release strategy, such as Dune ($400 million) and Godzilla vs Kong (nearly $470 million).
In terms of legacy sequels, they are still proving immensely popular – with Top Gun: Maverick still a box office juggernaut nearly 5 months since release. There’s also been Creed (a legacy sequel to the Rocky franchise), Doctor Sleep (a Shining sequel), Blade Runner 2049, Scream, Halloween, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife. This trend shows no sign of slowing down, with some upcoming ones including The Exorcist, Indiana Jones 5 and of course – Avatar 2.
While we wait to find out which legacy sequels will hit and which ones will miss, check out our guide to the best action movies.