Starting with ‘Metropolis’ (Fritz Lang, 1927), passing by ‘2001: Space Odyssey‘ (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) and the legendary ‘Star Wars‘ (George Lucas, 1977), the 20th century has established the science-fiction genre as a giant within the cinema industry. Now considered as one of the best cyberpunk movies ever made, The Matrix‘ (Wachowskis, 1999) finished the era with a bang by showcasing filmmaking technologies never seen before. Indeed, inventor John Gaeta used the dystopian trilogy to develop his photography techniques, including Bullet Time Effect, Volumetric Filmmaking, and Universal capture, which foreshadowed Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality, and Holo Cinema.
Ahead of their time, The Wachowskis were then pro-pulsed at the front of the 21st century Hollywood sci-fi stage. However their many attempts to conquer the public without Matrix fell short. 9 years after the ‘The Matrix Revolutions‘ (2003) came out, they directed and produced the epic novel adaptation ‘Cloud Atlas’ (2012) alongside Tom Tykwer. Unfortunately, the film with a budget of 128.5 million USD barely made back what it cost by grossing only 130.5 million USD worldwide.
Three years later, they wrote, produced and directed a space opera staring Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum; ‘Jupiter Ascending‘ (2015). The film did not do well either with at least 15 million USD lose and an audience score of 38% on Rotten Tomatoes. Lana Wachowski explained the fans disappointment about the film: “When I was young, originality was everything. A sequel was like a bad word. We’ve gone to the opposite place where [audiences] actually are more exited about a story we know the ending of.”. The sisters seemed to have troubles making their way in a post-Avatar (James Cameron, 2009) era where it is very difficult for a movie-maker to impress a blasé audience with audacious VFX.
However, on the 5th June 2015, the first episode of their new TV series ‘Sense 8’ came out and that changed everything. The science fiction drama web television available on Netflix was a wide success considered by imDb as the 5th best sci-fi series ever made and a record audience rotten tomatoes score of 91%. Unfortunately, the show putting around 9million USD per episode, cost Netflix too much for the audience it brought in exchange. Indeed, Cindy Holland, Netflix Vice president said: “At some point if you don’t have the viewership showing up to justify the expense of the series, you’re going to want to end it.”.
While Lily Wachowski has taken a break from the cinema industry since 2016, Lana did not find any project to bounce of off since Sense 8 got cancelled in 2018. That is when the miracle happened on August 20, 2019: Lana announced The Matrix 4. After two decades of struggle in the Hollywood sci-fi universe, The Wachowskis decided that the best strategy to come back to the front of the stage was to go with their strongest creation. In order to make that work, Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss have also confirmed to be casted again as Neo and Trinity. And it might just be a success as after ‘John Wick 3‘ (Chad Stahelski, 2019), Keanu Reeves has experienced a boom in his popularity among non – matrix fans, Marvel have proposed him a part in every film they are producing at the moment, which might which could possibly bring enough audience for the sequel.
Léon Bodier 
