Laurence Fishburne says he was turned away from The Matrix Resurrections (2025)

Whether or not anybody really wanted a fourth Matrix movie (we didn’t), getting Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss and Laurence Fishburne to reprise Neo, Trinity and Morpheus was clutch. There was only one problem: Laurence Fishburne wasn’t going to be in The Matrix Resurrections. And while the story was originally that Fishburne was never asked, the actor now says he actually tried to be a part of it.

Appearing on The View, Laurence Fishburne claimed that he approached those making The Matrix Resurrections but was quickly turned away. “I offered my services to the fourth Matrix, and they didn’t respond well to that. Hey, it’s not like I didn’t say, ‘I’d like to offer my services.’ I did. And for whatever reason, that didn’t happen, OK.” Instead, he would be replaced by The Trial of the Chicago 7’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, playing an entity merely embodying the character. Fishburne has been open about his own reaction to The Matrix Resurrections, saying it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be, which is…a tepid review.

As for why Morpheus proper wasn’t in the fourth Matrix, it comes down to the character being canonically killed off in video game The Matrix Online. So while Morpheus is dead, Resurrections clearly showed how technology could continue to use him. With that, what about Warner Bros.’ planned The Matrix 5? Fishburne isn’t ruling it out, saying, “It depends on the circumstances who was involved, how well the script has been written, if they offer me…We’ll see…”

The first Matrix movie would end up being one of the highest-grossing movies of 1999, sitting between Disney’s Tarzan and Pixar’s Toy Story 2. Its $171.5 million domestic haul would only be topped by the first sequel, 2003’s The Matrix Reloaded, while the third movie, The Matrix Resurrections (also 2003), would fall behind. But far down the list would be Resurrections, which flopped on the home front, taking in just $37.7 million on a $190 million. The worldwide box office would fare better but still fail to help it recoup.

Do we need a fifth Matrix movie? Does it need the original trio of Reeves, Moss and Fishburne?