It’s still not clear what shape the project will take, but sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Warner Bros. is in the early stages of developing a relaunch of The Matrix, the iconic 1999 sci-fi movie that is considered one of the most original films in cinematic history, with Zak Penn in talks to write a treatment.
Sources say there is potential interest in Michael B. Jordan to star, but much must be done before the project is ready to go.
At this point, the Wachowski siblings, who wrote and directed the original and its two sequels, are not involved and the nature of their potential engagement with a new version has not been determined. Certainly, Warners would want the two filmmakers to give at minimum a blessing to the nascent project.
The Matrix was released in a quiet period of the 1999 release calendar – March 31 – and Warners didn’t have outsized expectations for an action movie with obvious manga and comic-book influences. But the story and ground-breaking special effects (including the slow-motion “bullet time” effect, which launched dozens of imitators in the years that followed) became the highest grossing R-rated film of 1999 in North America, and the fourth-highest grossing film of the year worldwide. It also won four Academy Awards.