The Matrix: Resurrections features Carrie-Anne Moss.
The Warner Bros.
The Matrix Resurrections was viewed by over two million households on the opening weekend. The comparison shows that Matrix 4 is on par with The Suicide Squad, Space Jam: A New Legacy, and Wonder Woman 1984. Kong had 3.6 million viewers and Mortal Kombat had 3.8 million. King Richard, In the Heights, Malignant, and every Warner Bros. release of the next decade are all good-to-great movies.
The $12 million Fri-Sun/$22.5 million Wednesday-Sun domestic debut was more about The Matrix Resurrections than about Covid variables and HBO Max availability. Over the Christmas weekend, the $150 million sci-fi sequel sold viewer tickets than the $170 million samurai actioner 47 Ronin. If I told you that Matrix Resurrections was never going to be a hit, what would you think? Warner Bros. spent a lot of money to allow Lana Wachowski to run wild in the world of her creation while crafting a distinctly deconstructive riffs on legacy sequels and toxic nostalgia. WB was going to make a Matrix movie with or without her.
The original gang was a bonus, and that Ms. Wachowski was not happy about it, and that the sequel was partially a matter of not wanting. It was inevitable that we would go back to The Matrix, even if it was someone else at the wheel. The exception to the rule was Star Wars Episode VII, which was an exception to the rule in regards to budget and audience demand.
The movie The Force Awakens.
Disney.
Legacy sequels that followed The Force Awakens were cheap. Creed, a mid-budget studio melodrama starring Michael B. Jordan, earned $109 million domestic and $173 million worldwide. Jamie Lee Curtis reprised her role as Laurie Strode in Universal's Halloween, retconned itself into the one true sequel to John Carpenter and Deborah Hill's 1978 original. It cost $10 million and was very profitable, making up for it with a total of $256 million worldwide. WB and Sony's Blade Runner 2049 and Paramount/Fox's Terminator: Dark Fate both earned around $260 million worldwide, but on their respective budgets. Independence Day Resurgence is worth $390 million on a $165 million budget.
The exception to the rule was Universal's movie, "Jurassic World." It cost over $1 billion and was an exception to the rule. The film was marketed as a sequel to the original movie and a true event movie for people who didn't like the original movie. The fourth movie in the series was embraced as IMAX-worthy even though it cost $90 million and made just $90 million. Ghostbusters: Afterlife only cost $75 million, so it is a modest hit. Space Jam: A New Legacy was always a recipe for rate-of-return disaster because Warner Bros. spent $150 million on the movie.
The movie was called "Another Matrix movie!" The first trailer only works if you already know about the Matrix series and want another one. The marketing was meant to encourage confusion, even about things that were explained early in the film. If you know you can get them in the door, then you can sell a narrative while leaving out key details. When the conflict of Matrix Revolutions was resolved and the two protagonists died, that is when it is most true.
The West Side Story features Tony and Rachel Zegler.
The photo was taken by Niko Tavernise.
Doctor Sleep, Steven Spielberg's West Side Story, and Blade Runner 2049 were all sold to the public as a way to get another version of West Side. In the summer of 2003 The Matrix Revolutions suffered from inferior reviews and buzz while grossing less than The Matrix Reloaded, which was a monster hit with a budget of $150 million. A lot of people don't like Matrix 3. Some people disliked Matrix 2 so much that they didn't show Matrix 3 in theaters.
Disney and Lucasfilm were quite sure that audiences would flock to a sequel to Return of the Jedi, complete with Harrison Ford as a co-star and a cast of younger heroes and villains. It was a pretty safe bet to give J.J. Abrams and friends $250-$300 million and sell The Force Awakens almost entirely on the idea that it was a new Star Wars movie. Star Wars IX is starting to look like an exception in terms of how it was received, even though it is a sequel. Even though everyone showed up for a movie with a rating of 13 or more, it doesn't mean they would show up for a movie with a rating of 20 or more.
When it comes to legacy sequels, make sure the important cast members come back, make sure the budget is kept in check, and make sure the film is worth seeing whether you like the brand or not. Audiences don't want big-budget remakes or legacy sequels of brands like the first Matrix, the first Alien, the first Robocop, and the first Predator. What happened and couldn't have happened any other way.
