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Will Smith Matrix movie incoming

Lambogenie

Member
Eh, I'd watch it. If it's the way they really wanted to. But I feel like a lot of folks lost respect for him so not sure of the appeal. It's probably still be fine.
 

ResurrectedContrarian

Suffers with mild autism
Will Smith could have played Keanu Reeves' role of Neo in "The Matrix," but he turned it down. The actor explained he was baffled by director Lana and Lilly Wachowski's pitch, which failed to convey how groundbreaking the movie would be.

ugh, stop changing history with this nonsense; it was the Wachowski brothers Larry and Andy who offered him the job.

Also, required reading on why the Wachowski's are horrific (rolling stone, which many years later deleted it because we have to pretend this nonsense doesn't exist now) -- https://archive.is/PYeMs

tl;dr Larry was increasingly obsessed with being humiliated by a dominatrix, which eventually led down the predictable fetish of being sissy for her -> the "trans" identity that consumed him and later his brother.
 
I wonder what the pitch was, it seems obvious having seen the film at the time that it was miles ahead of other mainstream blockbusters, but I guess it's not automatically easy to convey that. A good concept, but the realisation of it, the visuals, the cool, all wouldn't have been there to help.



The Wachowskis were obviously not interested in him, because if you watch their videos they're *incredibly* well spoken. So their pitch was retarded by design, because they were required by the studio to meet him.
 

ssringo

Gold Member
l6QF0PP.gif
 

Days like these...

Have a Blessed Day
ugh, stop changing history with this nonsense; it was the Wachowski brothers Larry and Andy who offered him the job.

Also, required reading on why the Wachowski's are horrific (rolling stone, which many years later deleted it because we have to pretend this nonsense doesn't exist now) -- https://archive.is/PYeMs

tl;dr Larry was increasingly obsessed with being humiliated by a dominatrix, which eventually led down the predictable fetish of being sissy for her -> the "trans" identity that consumed him and later his brother.
I just read the link. That was wild but how did the brother also get into that?
 

Calico345

Gold Member
I wonder what the pitch was, it seems obvious having seen the film at the time that it was miles ahead of other mainstream blockbusters, but I guess it's not automatically easy to convey that. A good concept, but the realisation of it, the visuals, the cool, all wouldn't have been there to help. At the time of the pitch, Smith would have been riding high after two massive hits, Independence Day and Men In Black, had proven him as a mainstream movie star able to carry a sci fi blockbuster. You can imagine he was fielding loads of sci fi movie scripts all hoping to do the same. To that end, it's not so surprising that Smith passed on something that didn't seem overwhelmingly convincing, or that he'd maybe fear becoming type cast.

Apparently Val Kilmer was going to be Morpheus if Smith had wanted to be Neo.

Just thinking about those movies has made me think about how many great films there were back then. Before superhero slop took over the multiplexes.

The Matrix is my favorite movie ever. Imagining Val Kilmer in it is pretty cool. I think he would've fit somewhere. Laurence Fishburne nailed Morpheus, though.
 

Warspite

Member
Couldn’t be any worse than Matrix 4, which was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.

Animated GIF


Hollywood has been particularly good at out doing themselves when it come to making worse movies than the ones that proceeded it over the last 10 years.
 

Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable


The Wachowskis were obviously not interested in him, because if you watch their videos they're *incredibly* well spoken. So their pitch was retarded by design, because they were required by the studio to meet him.

I guess it depends on how reliable you think Smith's account of the pitch was, whether he wants to be seen as the guy who people pitch to because they have to but don't actually want him, and whether the footage here has been edited to try and flatter him and his judgement - it's quite easy to imagine people would think he was an idiot for turning down the movie, so why not suggest that it wasn't his fault because the pitch focussed on a detail that was a big part of the movie and it's marketing, but wouldn't make sense to focus on in a pitch.
 

Trilobit

Member
ugh, stop changing history with this nonsense; it was the Wachowski brothers Larry and Andy who offered him the job.

Also, required reading on why the Wachowski's are horrific (rolling stone, which many years later deleted it because we have to pretend this nonsense doesn't exist now) -- https://archive.is/PYeMs

tl;dr Larry was increasingly obsessed with being humiliated by a dominatrix, which eventually led down the predictable fetish of being sissy for her -> the "trans" identity that consumed him and later his brother.

That was a whole lot of serious mental illness in one article. No wonder certain people wanted it erased.
 

Cyberpunkd

Member
I guess it depends on how reliable you think Smith's account of the pitch was, whether he wants to be seen as the guy who people pitch to because they have to but don't actually want him, and whether the footage here has been edited to try and flatter him and his judgement - it's quite easy to imagine people would think he was an idiot for turning down the movie, so why not suggest that it wasn't his fault because the pitch focussed on a detail that was a big part of the movie and it's marketing, but wouldn't make sense to focus on in a pitch.
Not to mention many actors and even directors were known to drop pitches or not believe in them at the beginning - didn't Arnold think Terminator will be a flop? Yup:


Schwarzenegger was not as excited by the film; during an interview on the set of Conan the Destroyer, an interviewer asked him about a pair of shoes he had, which belonged to the wardrobe for The Terminator. Schwarzenegger responded, "Oh, some shit movie I'm doing, take a couple weeks."[32] He recounted in his memoir, Total Recall, that he was initially hesitant, but thought that playing a robot in a contemporary film would be a challenging change of pace from Conan the Barbarian and that the film was low-profile enough that it would not damage his career if it were unsuccessful.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
I guess it depends on how reliable you think Smith's account of the pitch was, whether he wants to be seen as the guy who people pitch to because they have to but don't actually want him, and whether the footage here has been edited to try and flatter him and his judgement - it's quite easy to imagine people would think he was an idiot for turning down the movie, so why not suggest that it wasn't his fault because the pitch focussed on a detail that was a big part of the movie and it's marketing, but wouldn't make sense to focus on in a pitch.
I can see Wills position in this. The Matrix MUST have been a crazy pitch as it is extremely high-concept, plus a lot of technical stuff and slo-mo that even Cameron and Snyder would be proud of. Seeing how many "great pitch!" films turn out to be incoherent disasters and how many "this thing is a fucking DISASTER" productions end up as classics, I can totally believe that The Matrix was a hard sell. And seeing where the story went with the later films I bet some of that philosophical mumbo-jumbo was in their pitch and made it a mess.

I also think that even late's 90's prime Will Smith was ABSOLUTELY the wrong actor for the part.
 

Monkfish877

Member
Is this the Drew Goddard movie or a separate project? I like Will, wouldn't mind seeing in a Matrix movie, it's one of my favourite movie franchises.
 

8bitpill

Member
Other than the first one, and the Animatrix, the rest of it is trash.

The Wachowski's are hacks.
maxresdefault.jpg


They had something good with the original, and ruined what came after.

The fourth one Matrix Resurrections was laughable.

If Will Smith was Neo, this movie franchise would've been dead in the water. They would've probably had some dance sequence hammer in there as well.

This...
giphy.gif


Lead to this...
tumblr_n91jt06mIm1r8tyvto1_500.gif
 
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jason10mm

Gold Member
That is as cringy today as it was the day I first watched it.

No reason for it other then the Wachowkis's shoe horning a bad idea they thought was cool.
I dunno, I give Reloaded more credit than most (Revolutions just failed to deliver on any of the landings). I see it as a final celebration of humanity in the face of almost certain extinction. Went on a bit too long but the concept was sound.
 

Ovek

7Member7
Other than the first one, and the Animatrix, the rest of it is trash.

The Wachowski's are hacks.
maxresdefault.jpg


They had something good with the original, and ruined what came after.

The fourth one Matrix Resurrections was laughable.

If Will Smith was Neo, this movie franchise would've been dead in the water. They would've probably had some dance sequence hammer in there as well.

This...
giphy.gif


Lead to this...
tumblr_n91jt06mIm1r8tyvto1_500.gif
Hay the Wild Wild West song is hype, fun fact it was the 1st MP3 I ever downloaded... and I still have it.
 
Hay the Wild Wild West song is hype, fun fact it was the 1st MP3 I ever downloaded... and I still have it.
The funny thing is that song made me interested in the movie enough to watch it. It would not have happened the other way around.
 

Soodanim

Gold Member
I've just finished a rewatch of 1-3, and the first is still incredible. 2 and 3 also exist. It's funny how by comparison 4 makes 3 look like a masterpiece of storytelling. 4 is a truly pointless piece of work.

But no matter how bad any of them are, and no matter how much I've enjoyed Will Smith's work over the years, the idea of Will Smith in anything resembling that first Matrix film or an attempt at a reboot is worse than anything about Matrix 4.
 

RaptorGTA

Member
My first reaction was..um no



The more I think about it, the more I am for it. Go again and make another failure. Waste more money.
 

MMaRsu

Member
Other than the first one, and the Animatrix, the rest of it is trash.

The Wachowski's are hacks.
maxresdefault.jpg


They had something good with the original, and ruined what came after.

The fourth one Matrix Resurrections was laughable.

If Will Smith was Neo, this movie franchise would've been dead in the water. They would've probably had some dance sequence hammer in there as well.

This...
giphy.gif


Lead to this...
tumblr_n91jt06mIm1r8tyvto1_500.gif

Pretty sure none of his movies had a dancing act..
 
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