Will Smith Won’t Star in Next ‘Matrix’ Movie, Despite Cryptic Teaser Post – Hollywood Reporter

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood ReporterSubscribe for full access to The Hollywood ReporterThe ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’ star stirred speculation about joining the ‘Matrix’ universe with an Instagram message seeming to talk about an upcoming project.
By

Etan Vlessing
Canada Bureau Chief
Will Smith will not be joining Warner Bros. and director Drew Goddard in a new Matrix movie for the studio, insiders tell The Hollywood Reporter.
That leaves open a mystery Smith sparked on Monday with a cryptic Instagram post noting how Smith passed on the starring role of Neo in the original 1999 sci-fi epic The Matrix, directed by Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski.

The Instagram post — featuring Matrix-style computer font — stated: “In 1997, the Wachowski’s 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…”

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The Matrix went on to be a generation-defining hit, while Barry Sonnenfeld’s Wild Wild West was beaten up by critics and flopped at the box office. Smith starred opposite Kevin Kline, and played a gun-blazing former Civil War hero, in a rare miss for the king of the 1990s box office.
It is unclear what, if anything, Smith’s post on Monday is teasing.
Goddard, the writer-director behind The Martian, The Cabin in the Woods and World War Z, was tapped to write and direct a new Matrix feature for Warner Bros. last year. This will be the first Matrix film not directed by a Wachowski sibling, though Lana Wachowski will act as an executive producer on the new project.
Released just over 25 years ago, The Matrix swept the imaginations of audiences with a mind-bending story, envelope-pushing special effects and a defining performance from Keanu Reeves. The movie, grossing $467 million worldwide at the time, became a pop culture touchstone. The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions were released back to back in 2003 to extend the film franchise, with The Matrix: Resurrections arriving in 2021.
Smith rose to fame as a rapper and star of the ’90s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and became one of the world’s biggest movie stars, doing films such as Independence Day (1996) and Men in Black (1997). He landed a hit last year with co-star Martin Lawrence in Sony’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die, which aimed in part to jump-start Smith’s movie career after he faced a scandal after slapping Oscar host Chris Rock on live television in 2022.A post shared by Will Smith (@willsmith)Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every dayGet the scoops first! Breaking news and interviews on comics, sci-fi, horror and moreSubscribe for full access to The Hollywood ReporterSend us a tip using our anonymous form.

Source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/will-smith-wont-star-matrix-5-1236102605/