Matrix: How have other ‘fourth’ films faired?

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This week’s announce of a fourth instalment in the Matrix franchise, 16 years after the second and third sequels, has been even slower to arrive than the bullet time effect introduced in the first movie.

Still the news has come as a joy to many fans.

“I can’t believe I’m about to go through this whirlwind again” tweeted Sucre.

Others online, like Spider-Man fan Cameron Magruder, however, appeared to have more pressing film news priorities. He posted: “So instead of making the Matrix 4… how about we just keep Spider-Man in the MCU and call it even.”

The original Matrix movie in 1999 was credited with predicting the future and influencing everything from 21st Century fashion, the rise of social media and the breakdown of the binary genders.

Now, stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss (aka Neo and Trinity, respectively) are set to return for the latest edition, which will be co-creator Lana Wachowski’s first Matrix movie since the critical and commercial flop Jupiter Ascending and her gender transition.

Lady Aeva online declared she was “so excited for Matrix 4”, adding she hoped it would confirm “the last three movies were just an allegory… for trans stuff.”

Andrew Todd correctly pointed out though that both lead characters actually “died in the last movie” [2003’s The Matrix Revolutions], therefore suggesting we could be in for another “weird” ride.

‘More relevant now’

Due to the rapid and widespread social and technological changes we’ve seen since the first three films, Total Film news editor Jordan Farley believes “it’s a good time” to reload The Matrix.

“The whole idea of a virtual world and people living online and in the real world is just so much more relevant now than it was in 1999, where the internet was still quite nascent,” he tells the BBC.

“People hide behind social media profiles and virtual reality itself is now a consumer-facing thing. I have a virtual reality headset sat next to my TV right now that I can put on and enter some crazy world that is completely different to our own.”

He adds: “So there’s definitely mileage just from the fact that we’re much closer now to a world like The Matrix than we were in 1999.”

It seems even Neo himself would struggle to predict how this one is going to play out, so while we wait for Wachowski’s latest creation, let’s strap on our headsets and see what can be learned from how other franchise’s have faired late into the fourth innings.

Toy Story 4

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Tom Hanks reprised his role as Woody in Toy Story 4 to great success

Earlier this year Disney released the latest in the much-loved animated movie series Toy Story. The film found Sheriff Woody – voiced again by Tom Hanks – Buzz Lightyear and co joined by new friend Forky on a road trip adventure.

Far from having outstayed its welcome, the latest Toy Story surpassed a billion dollars at the box office and fast became ninth highest-grossing animated film of all-time – ahead of both of the first two films.

It was described, in one review, on aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes as: “Heartwarming, funny, and beautifully-animated.

“Toy Story 4 manages the unlikely feat of extending – and perhaps concluding – a practically perfect animated saga.”

Farley feels the latest Toy Story was actually more like an “epilogue”, tagged on the end of the other three, rather than wrapping up a pre-planned quadrilogy of films (or quartet if you prefer). So the big challenge for makers of The Matrix – “a trilogy in retrospect” – he says, is finding exactly where the fourth film fits in.

Incidentally Reeves was in the new Toy Story, as the much-loved Canadian stuntman Duke Caboom. He also starred in John Wick 3 and appeared in Netflix’s Always Be My Maybe, leading Farley to believe 2019 could be Keanu’s year.

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Media captionKeanu Reeves: Games don’t need legitimising

“I think people people are very excited by the fact that he’s going to be in a new Matrix as well because he’s the talk of the town in the moment,” he says.

Ocean’s 8

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The latest Ocean’s lineup featured a star-studded all-female

Despite the confusion in the title, Ocean’s 8 was the fourth in the heist movie series’ arsenal.

It contained all the same thrilling professional criminality but this time George Clooney and his band of merry men were replaced by Sandra Bullock – as Clooney’s character Danny Ocean’s sister Debbie – and a string of leading ladies, including Rihanna.

The film received a lukewarm response from critics but started a debate around whether their were enough female reviewers.

Might the first Matrix movie since the #MeToo era see Reeves take a step back and allow Moss or someone else entirely to take on the lead role?

“Absolutely,” says Farley. “The Matrix really lends itself to doing practically anything with it and because it’s such a such a vast open space, it’s such an incredible sort of sandbox to play in.

“So there’s no reason why Keanu Reaves and Carrie-Anne Moss can’t take on slightly different roles.”

He adds that while change would be welcomed by many, stretching it too far would be “slightly challenging” for others.

“Neo and Trinity are such iconic characters, I think it would almost be jarring to see those actors in a Matrix film and then not be playing those characters.”

As Variety notes, the film are believed to searching for a younger actor to take on the role of Morpheus – as previously portrayed by Laurence Fishburne.

If we’ve learned anything from the first three films then it’s surely to expect the unexpected.

Indiana Jones and Rambo

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Absence often makes the heart grow fonder, but in the case of Indiana Jones it seems Harrison Ford may have left it a little too late.

2008’s Kingdom of the Crystal Skull arrived a whopping 19 years after the hero’s Last Crusade and was loved and loathed in equal measure.

If you think Ford had it tough, spare a thought for Vietnam War veteran Sylvester Stallone who trod a similar path as Rambo, returning to frontline action for a fourth film after 20 years away, in an eponymous film from the same year.

Many reviewers thought both looked faintly ridiculous as action men in their 60s, but then it didn’t prevent either franchise from being re-commissioned for a fifth film each this year.

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The ages of Rambo from 1982’s First Blood to 2019’s Rambo: Last Blood

Farley feels there are no such age-related issues in the virtual world of the Matrix, were the time is a relative concept.

“A big part of the film is this virtual world where people have avatars that reflect their own impression of their selves and their own sort of mental image, so I think you can sort of get away with the actors looking any way they want,” he says.

“I mean, you could re-cast them younger and get away with it. The weird thing for me is the fact that I don’t know if Keanu and Carrie are going to be playing their original characters or not because the third film pretty definitively says that those characters are dead! I don’t know how they’re gonna bring them back.

“Almost anything goes in The Matrix, so the opportunities are limitless.”

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