Laurence Fishburne Drops Bombshell About Matrix 4 Snub

Laurence Fishburne revealed that he was more than willing to appear in the fourth installment of the Matrix franchise.

via: People

While promoting his new movie The Amateur on The View Thursday, April 3, the actor was asked by host Sara Haines about whether he'd ever consider returning to The Matrix franchise as his character Morpheus from the original trilogy, after his absence from The Matrix Resurrections (2021).

"It depends on the circumstances — who is involved, how well the script has been written, if they offer me," said Fishburne, 63. " 'Cause, you know, I offered my services to the fourth Matrix, and they didn’t respond well."

"So hey, it’s not like I didn’t say, ‘Oh, I’d like to offer my services.’ I did. And for whatever reason, that didn’t happen. Okay. But that's the truth," he added. "So we'll see."

Despite not being asked back for Resurrections — which did see the return of his original-trilogy costars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss — Fishburne told Variety "not really" back in October 2022, when asked whether he felt like he missed out.

"But I thought Carrie-Anne and Keanu really did their thing," the actor praised of returning stars Reeves, 60, and Moss, 57, when asked if he'd seen the new film.

He also said that the movie "wasn't as bad as I thought it would be," though he admitted, "And it wasn't as good as I hoped it would be."

Fishburne previously spoke to New York Magazine in August 2020 and said he had "not been invited" to reprise his role of Morpheus in Resurrections.

"Maybe that will make me write another play. I wish them well. I hope it's great," he added.

The Tony Award winner and six-time Emmy winner next stars in The Amateur, a James Hawes-directed spy thriller, opposite Rami Malek and Rachel Brosnahan.

Malek, 43, leads as Charlie Heller, "a brilliant, but deeply introverted decoder" for the CIA who takes up a personal mission to avenge the murder of his wife (Brosnahan, 34), per a synopsis.

Her murder sets The Amateur's plot into motion and causes Charlie to take "matters into his own hands, embarking on a dangerous trek across the globe to track down those responsible," as the synopsis teases.

Michael Stuhlbarg, Holt McCallany, Julianne Nicholson, Adrian Martinez and Danny Sapani also costar in the film, which is based on author Robert Littell's 1981 novel of the same name.

The Amateur is in theaters April 11.

*****

He was far more diplomatic with his answer regarding the Matrix Resurrections, because as a Matrix fan I absolutely despised that film.

While it was great seeing Keanu and Carrie Anne back as Neo and Trinity, respectfully, I would have liked Laurence back as Morpheus instead of them replacing him with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.

Here's hoping new life can be injected into the franchise now that Drew Goddard (Bad Times at the El Royale, The Cabin in the Woods, Spider-Man: Homecoming, World War Z, Cloverfield, The Martian) is writing and directing a new Matrix film.