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Quick LinksSean Connery Missed Out On Two Massive Franchises in the Early 2000sThe League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Was Sean Connery’s Final Film

Sir Ian McKellen was the perfect Gandalf in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. He was equally adept at portraying the Wizard as an eccentric old man, a sage mentor, and a divine spirit of near-limitless power, which was a difficult balance to achieve. McKellen was Jackson's first choice to play Gandalf, but he was not the only option considered. Jackson needed to accommodate actors' schedules, the trilogy's budget, and requests from higher-ups at New Line Cinema, so many names were discussed for every major character. One of the front-runners in the discussion was Sean Connery, best known for playing James Bond from 1962 to 1967.

The Lord of the Rings' executive producer, Mark Ordesky, confirmed that an offer was made to Connery, who declined.

One of the most confusing moments in the entire The Matrix franchise could be exactly what The Matrix 5 needs to explain why Keanu Reeves may not return as Neo. The Matrix 5 has been confirmed, but its exact story details remain something of a mystery. The franchise could follow up the ending of The Matrix Resurrections with a prequel, sequel, or a complete reboot. No matter what path it chooses, however, the fifth installment in the franchise will have a hard time staying true to the established lore of The Matrix.

Though The Matrix 5 is happening, Keanu Reeves' involvement hasn't yet been confirmed. Reeves gave one condition to return for The Matrix 5, but there's still no official confirmation that he'll reprise the role of Neo, especially considering Drew Goddard is directing instead of the Wachowski sisters. If Reeves doesn't return for The Matrix 5, however, there's a risk of contradicting The Matrix's established canon,...

The Matrix 5 has the potential to answer lingering questions and maintain the tone set by the original trilogy. At the end of The Matrix Resurrections, Neo and Trinity embark on a mission to change the Matrix, possibly facing off with Agent Smith once more. Characters like Bugs and the Oracle could provide intriguing storylines in The Matrix 5, while the history of human-machine relationships could be referenced.

The confirmed sequel The Matrix 5 has the potential to answer questions created by the most recent Matrix movie, as well as the original trilogy. The Wachowski Sisters' cyberpunk reality-bending movie franchise has been a staple of the sci-fi genre for more than two decades, inspiring other properties with machine uprising and chosen one stories. The Matrix was also groundbreaking in special effects and stunt coordination, setting the bar for fight scenes in its time. The original trilogy was followed by a legacy sequence in 2021 — however,...

The perfect movie ending caps off the entire story, resolves the film's questions and themes, and makes audiences talk. Achieving the perfect balance with these elements is challenging, therefore there are very few perfect film endings. Some films end on anticlimaxes or provide vague closure, while others feel satisfactory but leave potential plot threads hanging or questions unanswered.

However, few film endings make little sense, even with a forgiving audience. They may be mired in such deep symbolism that only the creator can understand the intended climax. Similarly, some finales introduce nonsensical elements seemingly out of nowhere. Other dénouements defy explanation, even when viewed more than once. Even a rewatch can't make these movie endings any better.

Updated on March 14th, 2024 by Fawzia Khan: There is no such thing as a perfect movie ending, but satisfying ones are not hard to come by. Unfortunately, some of the greatest films had...

The Matrix franchise includes many characters with vast physical and cerebral powers. The Matrix took the world by storm in its 1999 theatrical debut, telling the story of Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves), a man who comes to learn that the world he lives in is nothing more than a simulated reality. Under the tutelage of his wise mentor Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), Neo also unlocks his power as "the One."

While the reception to The Matrix movies would be more mixed with its subsequent sequels, the landmark the series represents in both sci-fi and cinema overall remains historic. With so much of The Matrix franchise taking place inside a computer simulation, the Wachowskis were also able to showcase astonishing superhuman abilities on the part of both Neo and other characters. At the same time, the highly cerebral nature of the Matrix also includes characters with equally vast mental powers, as well. Here...

Stars: Blake Northfield, Kendal Rae, Lisa Chappell, Helmut Bakaitis, Jake Ryan, Goran D. Kleut, Anna Demidova, Jim Robison, Miyuki Lotz, Madison Haley, Fiona Press | Written by Dee McLachlan, Rena Owen | Directed by Dee McLachlan

Joining the long list of haunted house flicks is Australian offering Out of the Shadows from Dee McLachlan. The director’s last feature was 10Terrorists in 2012 (with a couple of episodes of Wentworth inbetween). Has this long gestation period allowed for a horror masterclass? Read on to find out!

Our plot revolves around Detective Eric Hughes (Blake Northfield) and his heavily pregnant wife Katrina (Kendal Rae) the couple find themselves taking residence in a former midwifery with a dark past whilst Eric attempts to unravel the truth behind a grisly murder. As spooky events transpire, we’re left to question whether Katrina mental state is beginning to unravel or if she is truly the victim of...

Exclusive: Australian horror from director Dee McLachlan will be introduced to buyers at Tiff.

London-based sales agent Kaleidoscope Film Distribution has picked up worldwide rights (excluding Australia and New Zealand) to Dee McLachlan’s Australian horror Out Of The Shadows.

The film will be introduced to buyers at the forthcoming Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 8-18) and a promo will be screened at Afm in November.

Filmed on Australia’s East Coast, Out Of The Shadows stars Blake Northfield in the story of a newly-wed detective who moves into his dream home unaware of the building’s dark history. When his pregnant wife claims she is being tormented by a supernatural force, he seeks help from a renegade demonologist.

The cast also includes Kendal Rae (Life), Jim Robison (Hacksaw Ridge), Jake Ryan (The Great Gatsby), Goran D. Kleut (I, Frankenstein, Gods Of Egypt) and Helmut Bakaitis (The Matrix: Revolutions, The Matrix: Reloaded).

Actor Northfield is also a...

This is a golden era for Australian feature documentaries as typified by the five critically-acclaimed titles in contention for the best feature doc prize at the fifth Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards.

Maya Newell.s Gayby Baby, Michael Ware and Bill Guttentag.s Only the Dead, Jen Peedom.s Sherpa, Damon Gameau.s That Sugar Film and Gillian Armstrong.s Women He.s Undressed are the nominees.

The Aacta Awards will be presented in Sydney in December, with the Seven Network telecasting the major awards on December 9.

Also revealed today were the nominees for best short animation and best short fiction film. In the running for the former are Adam Elliot.s Ernie Biscuit, Joe Brumm.s The Meek, Mikey Hill.s The Orchestra and Janette Goodey and John Lewis. The Story of Percival Pilts.

The nominees for best short fiction are Matt Holcomb.s Flat Daddy,...

Writer--director Megan Riakos. psychological thriller Crushed is continuing the rising trend of self-funded Australian films where cast and crew forego fees in return for a share of the profits.

Production wraps in Mudgee, Nsw, on January 17 after a 19-day shoot. The plot follows Elia, a young woman who returns home after her father dies. The death is ruled a murder and her mother becomes the prime suspect.

Sarah Bishop (whose credits include MTV's Deadbeat Dads and web series Skitbox TV and Bondi Hipsters) plays Elia and is serving as one of the producers along with Riakos and Robbie Miles, the La-based development executive at Sam Worthington.s Full Clip Pictures.

The cast includes Les Hill (Underbelly), Roxane Wilson (Home and Away), Aaron Glenane (Drift), Robert Preston (Redfern Now), Jamie Irvine (Anzac Girls), Helmut Bakaitis (The Matrix), Patrick Connolly (The Outlaw Michael Howe), Benjamin Mathews (Love My Way) and rising stars...

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Thursday, May 15

"The Matrix" rewrote the textbook for movie science fiction. The surprise 1999 sleeper hit -- Warner Bros. Pictures' biggest until "Harry Potter" came along -- did what science fiction and fantasy often do: It questioned the nature of reality and drew inspiration from philosophy and Eastern and Western spiritual thought. But for its borrowings from Lewis Carroll, William Gibson and Philip K. Dick, among others, the movie stood as a unique creation. Its authors, the highly talented Andy and Larry Wachowski, pulled the movie's many themes and ideas together into one of the great entertainments in recent pop culture.

Like "Blade Runner", "2001" and "Metropolis", the movie made us rethink the nature of our world. The "Matrix" phenomenon also inspired several books analyzing its references and cultural impact. "The Matrix Reloaded", the first of two sequels being released this year, points to the discouraging prospect that the Wachowskis may have read those books and started to believe in their own semimythological status, for the brothers seem to be taking themselves way too seriously.

The first movie was pitched to a broad spectrum of moviegoers, combining the best elements of storytelling, action and computer and visual effects. While upping the ante considerably in the action and effects department, storytelling stumbles frequently this outing as the movie stops cold for philosophical digressions about fate and destiny and reality. These remind one ever so much of tortuous university lectures in symbolic logic on a warm spring day. Instead of Zen-influenced truths punctuating the action and characters' decisions as in the first installment, these now impede the narration.

The film, of course, is a sure thing at the boxoffice. In fact, each sequel, "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions" (coming Nov. 7) -- reportedly costing more than $300 million to make -- will easily pass the $460 million worldwide gross of the original film. Opening weekend for "Reloaded" should come close to $100 million, with a potential for a $300 million domestic boxoffice.

"Reloaded" wants to burrow much deeper into the complexity of both the Matrix, that computer-fabricated world that lulls its human slaves into the delusion of a normal life, and the "real" world, where liberated humans can battle artificially intelligent Machines. Perhaps the gamble here is that "The Matrix"'s many fans will willingly sit through lengthy character introductions and further amplification of the philosophical realm in which the final battle must be won in order to lay the groundwork for "Revolutions".

Like his character, a computer hacker who goes by the handle of Neo, Keanu Reeves has clearly grown in conviction and physical agility to wear comfortably the dark clothes of the series' hero. Playing to the actor's strengths, the Wachowskis have made Neo in the mode of Western heroes played by Gary Cooper and Alan Ladd -- strong, silent men who do what they have to do.

Laurence Fishburne's Morpheus, Neo's spiritual guru and guide in the first episode, handles well the transition to someone who is not quite a sidekick yet must recede into a role that requires him to be the conduit of the Wachowskis' philosophical ruminations.

Carrie-Anne Moss returns as Trinity, the female warrior whose love for Neo and faith in Morpheus provide the rock from which both men can confidently battle. Her fights and stunts, especially a wild motorcycle ride during a freeway chase, continue to be the highlight of the series. She is the movies' best female action star since Linda Hamilton in the "Terminator" series.

"Reloaded" sends Neo on a personal quest to understand the nature of the task he accepted when he embraced his identity as the long-sought "One". To do so, Neo re-enters the Matrix. In his search for truth, he visits the Oracle (the late Gloria Foster), protected by the fighter Seraph (Collin Chou); rescues the Keymaker Randall Duk Kim), who knows the system's weakness; encounters new foes in Merovingian (Lambert Wilson), a Matrix political heavyweight, his duplicitous trophy wife, Persephone (Monica Bellucci), and the Twins (English black-belt brothers Neil and Adrian Rayment), a silver-clad albino duo in dreadlocks; and finally encounters the Architect (Helmut Bakaitis), the godlike creator of the Matrix.

Meanwhile, a Machine army bores down on Zion, humanity's last enclave deep within the Earth. At times, its vast machines and torch-lit cavernous rooms remind one of a crowded cathedral where hope still rules. Another time, when everyone parties down, it looks like a rave. Zion's three heroes are aided by new characters including Niobe Jada Pinkett Smith), an ex-flame of Morpheus'; the wise Councillor Hamann (Anthony Zerbe); Link (Harold Perrineau), a crewman on Morpheus' hovercraft; and Link's anxious wife, Zee (Nona Gaye).

The evil Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving), so explosively "deleted" from the system in the original film, makes a startling comeback not only as a free agent loose within the Matrix but who has the ability to replicate himself 100-fold -- which leads to the movie's first great fight sequence and the first glimpse of one of the film's problems.

Determined to one-up themselves in the area of effects, the Wachowskis move beyond "bullet time" -- those moments of slow motion seen by a camera moving at regular speed -- to put on film an epic rumble created through motion-capture data and virtual reality. This pits Neo against 100 Agent Smith clones in a city courtyard. Making and breaking the rules of 3-D animation, the sequence is technologically astonishing -- but repetitive and dull. Over and over, Neo slams aside these Agent Smiths, and over and over they spring back to attack. It's an amazing demonstration of movie magic, but it has virtually no impact on story or character. In fact, when Neo tires of the whole thing and simply flies up from the courtyard and away -- doing his "Superman thing", as Link puts it -- more than a few viewers may wonder: Why the hell he didn't do that in the first place?

Unlike "The Matrix", all fights and stunts -- including a 14-minute freeway chase -- have a disturbing tendency to repeat intricately choreographed action. Thus, computer technology and overkill supplant the ingenuity of the original film's action.

How this strategy of raising the bar in special effects and annotating most nonaction scenes with philosophical and mythological references will pay off in the final chapter may ultimately validate the Wachowski brothers' choices in this film. As the Matrix deteriorates in "Revolutions", much of "Reloaded" may resonate in ways we can now only imagine.

THE MATRIX RELOADED

Warner Bros Pictures

Warner Bros Pictures presents in association with Village Roadshow Pictures and NPV Entertainment a Silver Pictures production

Credits:

Screenwriters-directors: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski

Producer: Joel Silver

Executive producers: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski, Grant Hill, Andrew Mason, Bruce Berman

Director of photography: Bill Pope

Production designer: Owen Paterson

Music: Don Davis

Visual effects supervisor: John Gaeta

Costume designer: Kym Barrett

Editor: Zach Staenberg

Cast:

Neo: Keanu Reeves

Morpheus: Laurence Fishburne

Trinity: Carrie-Anne Moss

Agent Smith: Hugo Weaving

Niobe: Jada Pinkett Smith

Oracle: Gloria Foster

Persephone: Monica Bellucci

Seraph: Collin Chou

Zee: Nona Gaye

Keymaker: Randall Duk Kim

Commander Lock: Harry Lennix

Link: Harold Perrineau

The Twins: Neil Rayment, Adrian Rayment

Merovingian: Lambert Wilson

Running time -- 139 minutes (including scenes from "The Matrix Revolutions")

MPAA rating: R...