Like other big budget productions, The Matrix 4, directed by Lana Wachowski, has shut down until the current Coronavirus pandemic has cleared enough for studios to feel safe to go back into production. That day seems like it will come sooner rather than later as sister outlet Reel 360 reports California will reopen for film production this Friday, June 12.
Lilly will not be joining her sister to bring the fourth Matrix film to the big screen for Warner Bros. Lilly, in an interview, with the Hollywood Reporter says she has made a conscious decision to stay away from Hollywood, while working on more personal projects such as Showtime’s Work in Progress.
During the interview, Lilly does reveal that so much of The Matrix, was “born out of a lot of anger and a lot of rage, and its rage at capitalism and corporatized structure and forms of oppression.”
She explains that the “bubbling, seething rage within me was about my own oppression, that I [was forcing] myself to remain in the closet.” The result is a lot of subtext baked into the franchise about the spectrum of gender and the trans experience.
Wachowski also is mystified how the blockbuster’s red-pill motif has been co-opted by radical conservatives, “men’s rights” activists and conspiracy theorists who interpret it as a gateway to beliefs that are often white supremacist in nature.
ALSO READ: Lilly Wachowski on why she left Hollywood
Recently, Tesla founder Elon Musk, who called California’s coronavirus shutdown “fascist,” tweeted, “Take the red pill.” Ivanka Trump responded with “Taken!” followed by a “F*ck both of you” from Wachowski herself.
Once production resumes on The Matrix 4, it will hopefully still move to Chicago and Germany. The film is set to be released on May 21st, 2021, but that could change..
Lana Wachowski will helm and co-write the screenplay with novelists Aleksandar Hemon and David Mitchell. She is producing with Grant Hill, who executive produced Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions.
The cast will also be comprised of Keanu Reeves, Carrie Anne Moss, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jada Pinkett Smith, Jonathan Groff, and Neil Patrick Harris and Eréndira Ibarra.
The trilogy has grossed over $1.6 billion at the WW box office.
SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter
