Ever heard of a video game called The Matrix Online? You probably haven’t, since it was an MMORPG based on The Matrix that shut down over a decade ago. The thing is, this long-forgotten game might be the reason why Laurence Fishburne didn’t appear in the new Matrix Resurrections trailer.
“I am not in the next Matrix movie,” Fishburne said via Collider. “You would have to ask Lana Wachowski why because I don’t have an answer for that.”
Well, the reason for Fishburne’s absence might be due to Morpheus, his character from the series, getting killed off in The Matrix Online. Yes, a video game that you can’t even play anymore might be why Fishburne isn’t reprising what is arguably his most iconic role.
Check out the scene in question from The Matrix Online where Morpheus gets killed for yourself below.
I wonder if the new Matrix movie will address the supposedly-canon The Matrix Online game from 2005, where Morpheus is shot dead in an alley by a creepy assassin pic.twitter.com/wQxf48nv8H
— Tristan Cooper (@TristanACooper) September 7, 2021
Taking place after the original film trilogy, The Matrix Online was to be a continuation of the series various storylines. It’s supposed to be canon, according to none other than the Wachowskis themselves.
“Our films were never intended for a passive audience,” the Wachowskis said via IGN back in 2005. “Yet the fact that the Matrix films are three of the most successful adult films in history suggests that there are other people like us. Those are the people, the people who thought about it, who worked at it, who we ultimately made the trilogy for, and it now makes perfect sense to us that they should inherit the storyline.”
They continued: “For us, the idea of watching our baby evolve inside the virtual bubble-world of this new radically developing medium, which has in our opinion the potential of combining the best attributes of films and games, of synthesizing reality TV with soap opera, RPGs and Mortal Combat, is fantastically exciting.”
So there you have it: The Matrix Online might be why Morpheus, and by extension Laurence Fishburne, isn’t in The Matrix Resurrections.
