While it’s obviously a fact that a fourth installment in the franchise is incoming, with the movie set to hit theaters and HBO Max on December 22, nobody involved in the production has come right out and said that The Matrix Resurrections is a direct sequel to the original trilogy.
We’ve heard various teases and tidbits of how it references the events that previously unfolded on the big screen between 1999 and 2003, but everyone has stopped short of calling it a continuation. While that’s not much of a surprise given the reality-bending premise of the series as a whole, it’s set to create a lot of curiosity as we approach the final few weeks before release.
Speaking to To Vima, producer and co-writer David Mitchell became the latest to dance around the notion of Resurrections being a straightforward follow up to the first three, and he certainly used some interesting wording.
“It’s certainly not yet one more sequel, but something autonomous that contains however the three Matrix that preceded in a really ingenious way. It’s a very beautiful and weird creation. It also achieves a couple of things that we do not see in action films, meaning it subverts the rules of blockbusters.”
Legacy sequels are a very hit-or-miss business, especially when the absence is as long as eighteen years, and it would arguably be the worst move possible for The Matrix Resurrections to simply pick up where Revolutions left off. Consider our interest piqued, though, as we wait to see what director Lana Wachowski and the gang have cooked up.
