Will Smith has taken to social media to obliquely suggest that he might be starring in The Matrix 5 – 25 years after turning the original film down.
Will Smith famously turned down the chance to star as Neo in the original trilogy of Matrix films which began in 1999. The Matrix was a mind-bending cyberpunk adventure that would eventually star Keanu Reeves instead, becoming an all-time classic. While the sequels may not have lived up to the promise of that first film, The Matrix endures, and Smith’s decision to appear instead in Wild Wild West goes down as one of those legendary career missteps.
Of course, Smith is no stranger to career missteps, having committed perhaps the most high-profile one of that last couple of decades. His career is still recovering from that Oscars slap, but last year’s Bad Boys: Ride Or Die seemed to prove that audiences are more than willing to turn up to see a Will Smith movie. And when lots of dollars are involved, Hollywood tends to develop a handy sense of amnesia about such things. Thus, we wouldn’t be surprised if Warner Bros is looking to get Smith onboard for its next Matrix instalment.
Here’s Smith’s Instagram post which certainly seems to hint heavily at his involvement in the project, which is being written and directed by Drew Goddard: ‘In 1997, The Wachowskis offered Will Smith the role of Neo in The Matrix. Smith turned it down. He chose “Wild Wild West” believing it was a better fit for him at the time. But the question remains: what would The Matrix have been like with Will Smith as Neo. Wake up, Will. The Matrix has you …’
Read more: The Matrix Resurrections review | A belated sequel that falls some way short
The last instalment, The Matrix Resurrections, released in 2021 and underperformed both commercially and critically. It leaned heavily on metatextual storytelling and seemingly ended the series for good, with some speculating that this was (director and co-creator) Lana Wachowski’s ultimate intention.
Still, Warner Bros apparently wants more Matrix and so we’re getting more Matrix.
What with the last film’s foray into meta awfulness, Drew Goddard’s occasional preference for the same style of self aware storytelling and now Smith’s broad hint taking a page out of the same playbook, we just hope the film itself doesn’t follow that tack.
The perfect coda to this would be Keanu Reeves choosing to appear in a Wild Wild West film, but his camp is strangely silent on that idea…
