The Matrix Resurrections: Lana Wachowski wasn’t sure filming would resume after lockdown

Directed by Lana Wachowski, the new Matrix sequel The Matrix Resurrections is complete and headed for a December 22 theatrical and HBO Max release… but there was a time when Wachowski wasn’t sure it would ever be finished. The film was in the midst of production when the pandemic caused everything to shut down, and during an interview with Collider cast member Jessica Henwick revealed that Wachowski wondered aloud if The Matrix Resurrections was “meant to be” a legendary unfinished film.

Henwick, who plays a character called Bugs in the movie, said:

When we got shut down for COVID, Lana said, ‘Well, maybe that’s it. Maybe we won’t come back and film the rest of it. Maybe the new Matrix will go down as this legendary film which is incomplete, and no one will ever be able to see it. Maybe that’s what this is meant to be.’ And we were all going, ‘No, you have to finish the film.’ But she really did toy with the idea of just calling it quits…

Henwick also said that she used the lockdown time to continue training for the fight scenes:

That’s somewhere I felt pressure, because those fights are so seminal [to The Matrix]. Those moments from the original have stayed in my head, so many of those fight beats, [so] that was really where I was intimidated going into it. I knew I had to be performing up here. You’re performing with Keanu. It’s John Wick. He knows what he’s doing. You can’t hold him back, in any way. I had to give it my all. I devoted myself to it. We trained pretty hard in the run-up and we kept training all the way through filming. When we were shut down for COVID and we went off three months, I still was at home training every day, even though we didn’t know if we were going back. … I couldn’t think about that, and so I trained throughout the entire break because I just had to focus. I just had to be positive and go, ‘No, we’re gonna go finish the film. We have to. This can’t be how my Matrix journey ends.'”

Eventually filming did resume, and next month we’ll get to see how The Matrix Resurrections turned out.

Henwick is joined in the cast by returning franchise stars Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Daniel Bernhardt, as well as fellow franchise newcomers Christina Ricci, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Neil Patrick Harris, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Eréndira Ibarra, Jonathan Groff, Andrew Caldwell, Ellen Hollman, Brian J. Smith, Max Riemelt, and Chris Sean Reid.

Wachowski directed the film from a screenplay she wrote with Aleksandar Hemon and David Mitchell. Wachowski, Grant Hill, and James McTeigue are the producers, while Terry Needham, Garrett Grant, and Bruce Berman serve as executive producers.

Lana Wachowski wrote and directed the initial Matrix trilogy with her sister Lilly Wachowski, but Lilly is not involved with this one.